Queen of Hearts, The
by Lily Bart
Summary: The Sequel to 'Paper Hearts'. Also posted as part of the X Files Big Bang at LJ.
1. Title Page

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Title: Queen of Hearts

Author: Lily Bart

Email:

Wholistic Rating: R/M/NC-17 (violence and mature sexual situations, read at your own

risk)

Paring: M/S

Category: Angst, Story, MSR, ST, Family

Synopsis: The sequel to _Paper Hearts._

Spoilers: Several, too many to name. Read at your own risk

Disclaimer: I do not own Mulder, Scully or "The X Files." I am not getting any money

for writing this. No copyright infringement intended.

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Thanks to my Beta Erin. I love you with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns.

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	2. Chapter 1

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PROLOGUE

The slip of an angel lay dead on the mortuary table. The Boston PD had removed, catalogued and bagged her clothing as evidence before sending the body to Washington.

"This is FBI Special Agent Dana Scully, performing the autopsy on subject Caitlin Ross. The Subject is an eight-year-old Caucasian female. Preliminary cause of death, blood loss due to internal trauma…"

The powerful exam light caused the child's luxurious blond hair to cast a glow around her little stone face. And try as she might to focus on her notes, pictures and procedure the painful awareness of two parents' supreme devastation created a palpable presence, curling under her professional mask.

After hours of meticulous concentration forcing all emotion from her mind, Scully closed the Y incision, scrubbed out and left the autopsy bay. She took a deep breath as she cleansed herself from the taxing work.

Her partner, Special Agent Fox Mulder, tall, dark and as eccentric as you could be while remaining in the FBI, waited for her at the end of the hall. "Please don't tell me you think this is a murder from beyond the grave," she second-guessed him. While arguing over the plausibility of evidence was standard procedure for Agent's Scully and Mulder, the process did grow tiring.

"No, I don't," Mulder answered. They had both seen the heart shaped hole in the front of the victim's shirt, an undeniable similarity to the John Lee Roche case. "I think what we are dealing with here is a copycat." Mulder agreeing with her made a refreshing change. "Which should make him easier to catch, someone who knew John Lee Roche, maybe someone he did time with. We should check out parole review board records for the last few months."

As they walked away from the morgue, Scully paid close attention to her partner. She knew Mulder's strengths well but was more acquainted with his vulnerabilities than anyone else. "How are you holding up?" she asked, taking his hand and forcing him to look at her. "I'm worried about you. Caitlin Ross. You saved her."

"I endangered her," Mulder said under his breath. As suspected, Mulder internalized and personalized the case. "And now she's dead."

"You successfully negotiated the stand off," Scully said. "If you hadn't shot John Lee Roche he would have taken her, molested her and killed her."

Mulder sighed. Scully was intelligent, academically speaking well educated. But the human motivations she failed to see, the links that were so obvious to him, often eluded her. It was quite possibly why they worked so well together. "That's exactly what happened to her and I'm the reason she was targeted. Her connection to that case." His cell phone rang. "Mulder…"

Mulder assumed that the call pertained to the case. He nonchalantly placed his hand at the small of Scully's back as they exited the Arlington county crime lab. "Saddle up G-woman, we gotta trail to blaze."

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CHAPTER 1

For all of the good his photographic memory did him, Mulder ignored the child sitting in the communal office behind the glass wall. Believing that this meeting pertained to his current case, he was single minded in his attention to detail. It had not even occurred to him that it was unusual to be called into the Department of Children and Families.

"Hello Agent Mulder, I'm Sidney Gable," the woman began. "This is not a good night for us. One of those days when I hate my job." Sidney was slim, hair slicked back high on her head and although she suite resembled a professional outfit its lack of tailoring spoke of the meager salaries afforded social workers. "Alison Montclair was orphaned a few hours ago. She found her mother hanging from the ceiling fan in their home." She struck a combination of callousness and sympathy, typical of those who worked at a job where such tragedy was commonplace.

"You think this is pertinent to our current investigation, or is it a matter you are asking us to look into?" Mulder asked.

"Her mother Linda," Sidney added by way of explanation. "A neighbor and friend of Ms Montclair's is alleging that Linda confided to her that you are Alison's father."

Scully's head snapped in the direction of the child and she observed the girl walk across the room, return a magazine to the rack and collapsed once again into her seat, with acute FBI training. Approximately 10 years old, 4'5", 60-70lbs, light brown hair matched Mulder's perfectly. Scully could not discern anything other features as the young girl kept her eyes locked on her feet.

"Obviously a paternity test is required, but it is a matter that must be cleared up before the child can be placed into foster care and later adopted," Sidney outlined the procedure.

"Linda Montclair," Mulder whispered, for a moment he could not place the name. And then as though his mind were a movie projector forcibly controlling his conscious thought he recalled her from a decade ago. Another time, another life. Agent Reggie Purdue had been his partner ten plus years ago when he worked for the Behavioral Science Division.

They were two single men and the occasional after-hours escapade, in bars where women danced, had been a part of their complicit method of dealing with their stressful workload. And that was when he met her, exotic, intoxicating, uninhibited Linda. "You think she's my daughter?"

"We will need a sample of your DNA," Sidney answered flatly.

"She would have told me. Why wouldn't she have told me?" Mulder asked not expecting an answer. He ran a hand through his hair. This could not be happening. Not to him. The one eventuality he had done everything to prevent. He turned to Scully, but found those eyes that were so often his lifeline, ungiving. "What does this mean?"

"Look Mulder, I don't mean to denigrate your feelings but the last thing this girl needs is your misguided good intentions. Whether or not she is your daughter, she has no relationship with you. Don't take her on, out of guilt and hurt feelings, only to realized, that there is no room for her in your life. She doesn't need your rejection compounding everything else she is going through. So, if you aren't prepared to commit completely, don't walk into that room." Scully wanted to stop her harsh words, wanted to offer him the compassion she owed but her own insecurities drowned all else.

"I was there for you. I did everything you asked," Mulder said artfully using no proper nouns he recalled the topic forbidden between them.

"Don't you dare make this about Emily," Scully spoke softly but harshly in that way that always made him wish she would just yell. "I know. I know what this is like. That's how I know it changes everything." She reached for his hand. _Everything…everything we almost have…_she thought as he pulled away.

"We will need a sample of your DNA." The social service worker repeated. "And then I'll have to decide what to do with her tonight. Until paternity is confirmed she cannot be placed in your custody."

"I would like a test preformed in our lab. I'm sure I can get them to rush the results," Mulder said avoiding Scully.

"That just leaves her immediate care in question. It isn't easy to find a foster family on such short notice. Most of our families are full as it is."

"I'm a federal agent. I have top-secret security clearance. Surely, you can make an exception."

"I don't care who you are. It is against our policies and I am not about to send one of my girls out with a man whom she has never met," Sidney answered him.

"She can be remitted into my care," Scully startled them. "I have an active file with DCF. I'm a fully certified foster parent."

"I didn't know you followed through with that process," Mulder said. She rebuffed his attempt to reach for her arm.

"I thought it wise. Sometimes our cases involve children, Kevin Kryder, Gibson Parise. It would have been easier if I could have taken temporary custody, made medical decisions. We would have been better able to help them. That's why I completed the process," Scully said, daring him to make any more out of this discovery, her tone telling him that her support in this matter would be logistical and nothing more.

Sidney ushered them into the outer offices. The young girl looked up at them, insecurity written in her features.

"Ally," Sidney began cautiously. "This is Miss…"

"Dana, I'm Dana Scully."

"She has offered to let you stay with her until we can sort out all of the legalities," Sidney explained. "This is Mr. Fox Mulder. The man your mother spoke of."

"That's your solution, leave me with some stranger instead of my own grandparents?" Ally responded, her voice dripping bitterness.

"Ally your grandparents can't take care of you. They have in home care for themselves," Sidney stated, her manner accustomed to handling children at such times.

Mulder spotted the frayed, sagging duffel bag, by the child's feet. He gathered up the lone accessory. Ally looked from one adult to another appraising her options and judged that she had none. After a few moments of paperwork and signatures she walked down the hall before the lanky man and the small red head as they exited the building.

"It's ok Scully. I've got her," Mulder said as they walked through the parking lot. "I'm not going to make a run for the Canadian border." He fruitlessly stabbed through the tension with an attempt at humor but Scully would have none of it.

"I signed the paperwork. She's staying with me. Take me to my car." She closed the conversation.

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	3. Chapter 2

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Ally walked into the elegant comfort of Scully's apartment. Scully placed her duffle bag by the end table. The young girl studied the professional woman's sleek style, her effortless manner of inspiring trust. Ally questioned for the slightest of instants if this were someone worthy of emulation, someone to buoy her raw spirit to.

Ending the moment, Scully fled to the solitude of her kitchen. "Have you eaten?" she called.

"I'm fine. I don't want anything," Ally told her. After the upheaval of the day, Scully's appetite was also failing. She spotted a used coffee cup resting on the counter, and rejoicing at another reason to keep her distance; she washed it out.

"I could fix a couple of sandwiches, something light."

"Sure," Ally said as she took in her surroundings. The room was clean, not exactly uninviting, but a room void of much personal touch. "I don't understand," Ally said following her own internal monologue.

"What don't you understand?"

"Why are you a foster parent?" She asked sticking her head into the kitchen as Scully put away the mug. "Isn't the point to take in a kid?"

This little girl was not Mulder, Scully reminded herself. There was no need to hide the truth from her, no chance she would internalize Scully's history. "I was trying to adopt a little girl."

"And…" Ally pulled a chair out from the dining table and sat.

"She was very ill. She passed away before my petition was adjudicated." Scully took two plates down from the cabinet.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't," Scully said quietly. She was not going to accept sympathy from a child. "It was a long time ago."

"How well do you know him?" Ally asked, changing the subject without segue way. "Is he cool?" The subject was not much of an improvement for Scully.

"We've worked together for a while," Scully said. She opened the pantry to retrieve four slices of bread. She placed them on the plates.

"Will he keep me?"

"He'll want to do what's right." Scully said as she took condiments from the refrigerator. "Mayo or mustard?"

"Mayo. But only if I'm actually his daughter."

"You only want Mayo if you're his daughter," Scully attempted to joke but Ally was not diverted.

"No. He will only keep me if the DNA test says he's my dad?"

"He will make sure that you are somewhere safe and well cared for" Scully replied as she twisted the lid off the mayonnaise and selected a butter knife from the drawer.

"It shouldn't matter, you know?"

"What shouldn't matter?"

"I want someone who wants me. It shouldn't matter what a DNA test says. DNA tests won't make us a family."

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Mulder stepped inside as Scully opened the door. "Morning Mulder," she said standing aside. He noticed Ally curled up on the couch, in the exact spot where he had been curled with a warm, relaxed Scully across his lap, two was it three weeks ago?

_She lifted her head her lips millimeters from his. He was tired the moment tranquil and as that lovely eyebrow arched he was done for. "Dana…" he changed his mind as her first name sounded foreign on his tongue. "Scully, I…" but something stayed his lips and he could not tell her, no matter how his heart pounded in his chest. It was the story of them. Bad timing, missed opportunities, improbable odds all conspiring to keep them from consummating their relationship._

He looked at his possible daughter snuggled on the couch and accepted that this was undoubtedly the end of any chance he'd had with Dana Scully.

"Hey, I come bringing breakfast, doughnuts," he announced holding up the white paper bag. He noticed the pillow and blanket at the other end of the sofa and deduced that Scully had slept on her couch, spent the night curled head to foot with this strange girl. Had this child bewitched her?

Just then, Ally sat up. "Scully doesn't allow doughnuts," she told him.

He opened the bag and offered Ally a napkin to select her pastry.

She grabbed the sinful delight and was about to bite into it before she paused and tilted her head at him. "Thank you," she said. "I should probably eat this at the table." Mulder followed her to the dinning area.

"I thought we could do something together. Go downtown, maybe to a museum."

"You don't have to. You aren't my dad," she informed him, taking her first bite of the sticky confection.

"You know that? Did your mother tell you that? Did she tell you about your father?" Mulder asked.

"No, but I know Linda," Ally replied. "And if she knew who my father was, he would have been paying child support for like a jillion years."

"Well, here is a way to know for sure. Just one question. Which Smithsonian should we visit this afternoon? Air and Space or Natural History?"

"Air and Space," Ally answered without hesitation.

"That's my girl," Mulder grinned.

"I've always wanted to go to the Air and Space Museum. My class went last year but I couldn't go because Linda forgot to sign the permission slip. But I'd rather go see Nana and Gram today? They're worried about me. I want them to know, I'm ok."

"Ally, given the circumstances they might not want to meet me," Mulder hesitated as he spoke. How could he tell a kid that when a man seduces a woman and leaves her pregnant, that woman's parents don't usually take well to said man.

"It's ok," Ally caught on quickly. "They didn't get alone with Linda."

"How about this, we go to the museum today and I'll take you to see your grandparents tomorrow?"

"Ok," Ally nodded.

"Here, Ally," Scully said and placed a glass of orange juice in front of her. "Drink this. At least it has some vitamin C."

"It'll taste weird with the doughnut," Ally said but drank as she was told.

"What happened to your nails?" Mulder asked noticing Scully's usually trim, polished manicure, a deep shade of green.

"It's called Sewer Sludge. It's from Urban Grime. They have to coolest colors," Ally explained before Scully could answer. "We gave each other manicures last night. She gave me French tips." Ally waved her hand for Mulder to inspect her fingernails.

That settled it, this child was a witch. "You convinced Dana Scully to paint her nails Sewer Sludge Green?" Mulder asked. Unlike Mothmen if he hadn't seen it Mulder wouldn't have believed it.

"It's nail polish Mulder. It comes off before work on Monday," Scully assured him.

"Can Miss Dana come with us?"

"No, Ally," Scully responded. "I have some work to finish up, some things to get done. Go enjoy the day with Mr. Mulder," Scully was not going to be pulled into this personal interlude in Mulder's life.

"No we want you to come," Ally spoke for both her and Mulder.

"No, you guys should spend some time together."

"How about this, today is just you and me and Miss Dana can come with us tomorrow," Mulder proposed. He felt reasonably certain he could handle a day downtown but meeting the grandparents of a daughter who might be his—_please Scully go along_—he chanted in his head.

Scully knew exactly what the invitation was about, and although it would serve him right if she threw him to the proverbial dogs, it was a task she was not very good at. And, she thought looking at Ally, if this child's fate did rest in Mulder's care, it would be best to ensure that Mulder had a positive acquaintance with these people. Cue: Dana Scully; Mulder Tamer Extraordinare, now there was a business card waiting to be printed.

"Alright, I'll join you guys tomorrow."

"Thanks Scully," Mulder replied. The implications of Scully's acceptance went beyond Ally's understanding. "Why don't you go get dressed and we'll get going," Mulder said and Ally grabbed her bag and headed to the bathroom. "I'll make sure she's eaten before I bring her back."

"Just remember, cotton candy and a pretzel with some ketchup don't count as dinner."

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They returned Sunday to find the large, flat, brown envelope shoved under the front door, like a piece of junk mail. Scully picked it up but all three knew what it contained.

"I figured it would be Monday at the earliest," Mulder said. He needed the time to ease into this possibility.

"We rush the lab so often I guess it was a preemptive strike against our nagging," Scully said handing over the envelope.

"No, you open it," Mulder shied away.

"You sure?" she asked.

"Yes, you do it."

"You ready Ally?" Scully looked at the little girl, her face pale with panic. Ally nodded silently. Scully slipped her finger under the flap and opened the package.

"What are we hoping for here?" Mulder asked Ally.

"I don't know," Ally whispered. "What do you want?" she asked in return.

Mulder did not know how to answer. If the enclosed documents did indeed prove that this was his daughter, was he going to add her to his life? Would she be better off adopted out to a stable family? "Ally whatever that paper says you're a great kid. Any guy should be thrilled to have you as a daughter," Mulder answered her. What pathetic platitude, he thought, is that the best you can offer her? Scully had been right back at DCF. He was going on little more then misguided good intentions. "I want the truth," Mulder finally spoke. He took Ally's small hand and looking into her hazel eyes, he replied, "we're ready."

Scully felt closed out of the moment, little more than a messenger delivering news that in no way involved her. She pulled out a plain sheet of white computer paper. "99.89 percent match. She is your daughter Mulder." Scully straightened her spine. Now she knew; now they all knew. Why did she feel as though something had been ripped away from her, that she was loosing something vital?

It was Mulder, she assessed. Whatever they had been on the brink of was now over. And this time, it was not a clumsy moment they could back away from, could regroup from. And no matter how long he pretended to think things over, Fox Mulder would choose his daughter. Scully had spent years with him searching for his sister, refusing to believe the culpability of his parents. On an instinctual level he would feel it his duty to be a father to his child. And where would that leave her?

Coming out of her thoughts Scully noticed that Ally was smiling shyly wrapped in her father's arms. "It is good isn't it?"

"Yes of course it is," Mulder said as he let her go.

"Then we should have some ice cream to celebrate," Ally suggested.

"Yeah but Scully doesn't have any ice cream," Mulder told her.

"That's ok. I can run to the newsstand and get some."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Mulder said. It occurred to him that his permission was pertinent in a way it had never been before. He was responsible for this girl.

Ally quickly thought over her next move. Although she wanted to shout and roll her eyes, 'Please, you have known me for like forty eight hours and you think you're the boss of my life!' But she took a more logical approach. "Come on. The newsstand is on this block. I won't even have to cross the street. It'll take me like five minutes to get there. I'll spend fifteen minutes looking around and getting ice cream and be back here in another five."

"Ok go," Mulder reached for his wallet and handed her some money. "Rocky Road for me and whatever wheat germ and bee pollen Scully's into these days."

"Frozen yogurt will be fine," Scully said.

"What flavor?"

"Surprise me."

"I won't even get the guy standing on the corner to buy me cigarettes," Ally quipped opening the door to leave.

"Twenty five minutes, you're on the clock," he told her not knowing what he would do if she defied him. Ally closed the door behind her.

"What is the rest of it?" Mulder asked the instant the door clicked closed.

Scully pulled out the rest of the DNA profile and examined it. "Everything normal, no viruses, no branch DNA. I'll need X rays to check for an implant but I think she's just a normal little girl."

"Will you keep her here, until everything is cleared with social services?"

"No, she's yours Mulder. The rest is a formality," Scully said as she replaced the documents and handed them to him.

"Come on Scully, she's a girl."

"Oh, so you noticed?" Scully asked pointedly, and although she felt guilty, she felt satisfied, knowing him well enough to recognize his panic face. "That will help."

"You offered to be the foster parent. You involved yourself," Mulder pointed out. An outing in downtown DC was not the same thing as having full care of a child in his home. "Give me a few days to get the place ready."

"I can't believe this. You're scared. I have seen you go off half cocked chasing aliens, monsters, dangerous government secrets and you are afraid to be alone with one little girl, your own daughter," Scully barely controlled her desire to spit the words at him.

And damn it! If this were anything else in the world, Scully would support him wholeheartedly but this one, two punch was better than a T.K.O. He had not known until recently that Scully had any insecurities about her place in his affections. That had all changed with the impeccable timing of Diana's brief return to the X Files. But even that, they could get past, just another in a long line of stumbling blocks. But not this. This was monumentally different. Seeing fate hand him a perfectly healthy, normal daughter, after holding Emily comatose and dying, after discovering that she would never have children. How could he expect her to stand by and watch this happen for him? And if Scully put this young girl in the balance against his relationship with her what would he do?

"Mulder, deep six the videos that aren't yours and take your daughter home," Scully told him, her voice as cold and final as he had ever heard it, but as he looked away he noticed she had not yet removed that hideous green nail polish.

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AN: T.K.O.— A boxing term, Technical Knock Out.


	4. Chapter 3

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Mulder's apartment was not very accommodating for an adult male, let alone an eleven-year-old girl. And while she seemed to fit in perfectly at Scully's place, his domicile seemed too large for her, as though she were a doll crafted to a scale too meticulous for him.

At a loss as to what to do, Mulder took her small bag back to his bedroom. He rarely used it anyway. In a rushed effort, he threw his laundry in a pile, and closed the closet. He found an expired can of air freshener under the vanity and sprayed a few puffs. Next, he cleared out a couple of drawers. That done he continued to pace searching for something else to do.

He returned to the living room where Ally stood looking into his fish tank. "You like fish?" he asked, hoping he had found some common ground with her. He sat on the couch.

She raised her shoulders and turned to him, making a fish face by sucking in the sides of her cheeks. She let them go with a loud pop. "The little baby one picked up the rocks on the bottom and spit them at the agley eater." She flopped on the opposite corner of the sofa. "Thanks…you know…for keeping me."

"Hey," Mulder smiled at her. "You're my kid. We can make this work. Although you might decide you don't like it here. I'm pretty lackadaisical."

"Lackadaisical?" Ally repeated the funny sounding word.

"Yeah, I leave sunflower seeds scattered everywhere."

"That's ok. I never put my clothes away."

"The only fruit I keep in the house comes in a loop."

"I don't eat anything healthy anyway."

Ally gained a measure of comfort in the pattern they established, whereas the enormity of what he had undertaken overwhelmed Mulder.

"Did you pay Linda?" Ally asked turning up the emotional discomfort for him.

Mulder took a deep breath to steady his nerves. He did not want her to feel uncomfortable, as these first moments in his home would set the precedent for them. "Ally, she was a dancer. Men paid her to dance for them." He hoped that would be an end to her questions about his association with Linda, yet he feared his answer was only enough to test her knowledge.

"But after that? Did you pay her then? For other things?" Ally questioned him demonstrating knowledge of an adult subject.

"No, I would have helped her, if she'd asked, and if she had told me about you…"

"What would you have done?" Ally struck a chord in him with all the precision of a concert harpist.

Mulder refused to answer directly. "I know this isn't easy or even fair for you," he said. Fatherhood isn't for cowards he thought to himself, as he couldn't even answer her first complicated question, and she probably had thousands more.

"I'm glad she's dead." Ally surprised herself by her admission. "I don't mean that," she added quickly, unsure how much to tell this new father. "But I am glad I'm not with her. Am I bad?"

"No, you are always entitled to your thoughts and feelings," Mulder spoke choosing his words prudently, now that he spoke with the authority of a father. "It is only how you act on those feelings that can make them bad."

"She was going to sell me," Ally said.

"What do you mean?" Mulder asked, certain he misunderstood.

Ally nodded her head. "She woke me up one night and led me back to her room. I was never allowed in there," she said looking at her hands folded in her lap.

Mulder reached out and placed his hand palm down on her knee realizing, as he did, that it was against all of the training he had ever received. He did not know this child that well and procedure dictated not to rush physical contact when someone vulnerable was disclosing personal information. "What happened Ally? What happened when you went into that room?" Mulder asked a chill ran along his spine, certain he did not want to know.

"There was a man sitting on her bed. He looked straight at me and she told me to take off my shirt. But I wouldn't. I ran outside. I knew they wouldn't look for me."

"What happened then?" Mulder held his breath, praying her answer would be something innocuous, something he could brush aside and never think about again.

"Nothing," Ally lay back against the leather arm of the couch, unable to look at him. "I snuck into the neighbors yard. They had a dog I used to play with. I just stayed there for a while, pretending I was one of the kids like in _Twenty One Balloons_.

"You know that book? How they had those beds and they could raise them all the way up to a sky light in the ceiling, and when the weather was nice they could even lift the glass and sleep under the stars. I just stayed awake looking at the stars. But I knew…I was scared he would come back," Ally finished, eyes still trained straight ahead.

"Ally, you're safe here, no one will hurt you," Mulder said, understanding the inadequacy parents experience when they realize that they have failed to protect their child. 'Was this the way his parents felt?' he wondered. 'Is this what tore them apart?'

"Yeah, I know," Ally answered him. Living with her mother's negligent, and risqué lifestyle had forced her to be a quick and accurate judge of character.

"You know you can tell me anything, whatever happened. It wasn't your fault," Mulder assured her but was relieved when she did not continue the conversation. Two adults against one little girl were not very probable odds. "How about this, we start with a clean slate? You're with me now, so let's forget anything that happened before."

"Ok, I'd like that."

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"So Mr. Mulder, why is it that you wish to send your young daughter to our school?" Father McCue asked the man seated in front of him.

"Your school is academically excellent and she's very smart. I want her to have the best opportunities." Mulder responded as he tried to guess what the priest wanted to hear. "I also like the security and discretion of enrolling her in a private school."

"Yes, but there are other private schools. This is a Catholic school and from what I'm given to understand you and your daughter do not practice any prescribed faith," the priest said drawing from information he had gained from Dana Scully. "This is not a problem. We have students here of a variety of religions. Being Catholic is not a prerequisite. I'm just curious, with so many educational choices available, why you would choose a religiously based school?"

"You're right, I don't observe any conventional religious observance, but I would never prevent Ally from exploring her own spirituality," Mulder paused realizing he would have to level with Father McCue, and that as a priest he was probably highly adept at sensing veracity. "May I speak confidentially?"

"By all means," Father McCue encouraged.

"As you know, Dana Scully is my partner at the FBI."

"Miss Scully is a good friend."

"She is a remarkable woman. I admire her more than anyone. I don't know much about raising a daughter but Scully is the example I'd like to put before her. Scully's faith is not something I usually associate with her. We don't talk about it, but it's part of her, and if it is part of the reason Scully is the exceptional woman I know, then I want Ally exposed to that philosophy as well."

"Ally is a very bright girl. Her test scores far exceed our requirements," Father McCue said, as Ally returned from her tour of the grounds with Sister Beatrice.

"Well, Ally what do you think? Would you like to go to school here?" Father McCue asked as she entered the room, to stand beside her dad.

"Sure, I think I would like it."

"Well, congratulations. You may start at the beginning of the month," Father McCue said, eager to add such a gifted student to his program.

"Thanks." Mulder stood shaking the priest's hand.

"Pleasure to meet you Mr. Mulder. And may I welcome the newest member of our student body." He shook hands with Ally.

"Yes sir. Thank you sir," Ally said.

Mulder placed his hand on Ally's shoulder and led her out of the office. "So, what's the scoop kiddo? Do you really like it?"

"Isn't that what you want?" she asked looking up at him.

"Hey, that's not how this works. I'm not here to tell you what to do. My job is to make sure you don't get arrested." Mulder winked down at her. "Seriously though, don't try to please me, just concentrate on growing up. I'll pay the bills."

"Really? Then I want to go back to Patrick Henry," said Ally.

"Patrick Henry?"

"My old school."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Ally. That school is in Baltimore. It's too far away. But you can go to the public school here or St. John's, or we can find another school in the area," Mulder outlined the possibilities.

Ally considered the offer for a moment and then shook her head saying, "It's fine. If I have to change schools, I'll give St. John's a try."

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	5. Chapter 4

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"Our perpetrator has a strong inclination for fantasy and will likely continue to choose young victims who are easily dominated" Agent Sonders reported. "Their fear excites him. I believe the knife indicates that he belongs to the relatively small category of sexual sadists. It may also indicate an interest in occult or satanic ritual." The cool blonde crossed her arms.

"And that would be your area of expertise Agent Mulder," Tom Colton spoke from his position at the head of the conference table. All attention turned to Mulder. Colton resented having Spooky Fox Mulder on his case. But as Colton had recently been promoted to Assistant Director in the Violent Crimes Division, it made their forced collaboration easier to accept.

"In this instance, I disagree with Agent Sonders. I see no physical evidence connecting this case with the occult. What we can't ignore is the obvious connection to the John Lee Roche case," said Mulder.

"Agent Mulder, John Lee Roche is dead," Sonders interrupted.

"Yes and Caitlin Ross was in his arms when I shot him. That can't be a coincidence," Mulder countered.

"Offender profiling is an inexact science at its best," Scully spoke up. Sensing the rift in the team she tried to get them back to some common ground. "And as long as we have solid leads to investigate we should concentrate on them."

"The only lead we have is the fact that the victim's shirt had a heart shaped hole. And I don't believe Mr. Roche copyrighted his MO. It is not improbable that someone else would murder in the same pattern," Sonders said, from where she sat on the far side of the room.

"There was also the playing card, that the parents received in the mail earlier that day," Mulder pointed out.

"That card has been ruled out as evidence," Colton reminded him, aiding Sonders.

"The Queen of Clubs, in cartomancy that could signify creativity, or more likely in this case, success or completion," Mulder continued forcing them to listen to his theory. "I think our killer is telling us that he is continuing and intends to complete what John Lee Roche began."

"The card has not been proven to have any relevance to this case," Sonders near shouted.

"May I remind you that, Agent Mulder brought in Roche twice. This case is well within his jurisdiction," Scully said. While it was one of her chief past times, she was not about to allow anyone else to debunk Mulder's theories. Mulder noted her clear demonstration of loyalty. At least professionally they seemed to be on the mend.

"Yes and this is not the Roche case, Agent Scully," Sonders glared. "Nor are you and Agent Mulder on the X Files any longer. Any jurisdiction you previously enjoyed has ended."

"Further," Scully uncharacteristically continued to argue, "none of the medical evidence suggests that the offender is excited by fear, or that the crime has anything to do with sexual desire. He used a knife. If you continue profiling, that suggests he is either impudent or not sexually excited by children. There is another motive at work here."

"This only distances our suspect from Roche. His victims were raped in a conventional manner," Sonders pointed out.

"Actually, it proves Agent Scully's point," Mulder said showing equal support for his partner. "Without sexual deviance as a motive, the only connection our killer has to Caitlin Ross is through Roche."

"When questioned Mr. and Mrs. Ross said that there had been no service or salesmen in the house in the last three months, except an exterminator who upon questioning, provided a corroborated alibi," Scully said, showing the assembled team how thorough she and Mulder had been in their part of the investigation. Mulder smiled as he basked in her backing.

"Our suspect did not select Caitlin, John Lee Roche did. We are looking for someone who knew Roche well, someone trying to emulate him. We should begin questioning his former friends and acquaintances," Mulder finished. Once again the Spookys were rowing in tandem.

"Your thoroughness is noted Agents, however I believe we should continue our investigation through the sex offender registry," Colton said, settling the matter. "Lets take ten minutes then meet back here to work out assignments."

Mulder followed Scully to the break room. He usually did not drink caffeine, this late in the day, but these meetings were so soporific, that he poured two cups of coffee. To Scully's he added cream but no sugar.

"Thanks for backing me up." Mulder handed her the coffee.

"I think you're right. It had to happen eventually," she told him, as she blew over the top of the cup. "How are you doing?" She asked not directly mentioning Ally.

"Fine, good. Fine and good," Mulder stammered.

"Good, I'm glad. That's really good." Scully said trying not to sound artificial.

"Here you are Agent Mulder," Shannon, the young slender intern handed Mulder a piece of mail. "I knew you guys would be meeting up here so I thought I would deliver your mail." She smiled.

"Thanks," Mulder said dismissing her. Scully resisted the urge to chuckle. Mulder could be so oblivious to what was around him. The poor young girl was obviously smitten but she could have walked in the room naked for all he cared. "Here you need to memorize this." Mulder handed Scully the thin legal sized envelope.

"What is it?"

"My combination. I had a safe put in my apartment."

"I know your combination," Scully said not looking at the paper. "Why?"

"I have an eleven year old and a gun."

"I'm glad to see you're thinking this through," she said.

"Byers gave me the heads up. Thank him," Mulder said but felt a little validated by her approval.

"You introduced her to the guys?"

"Yep. Langley is building her a role-playing character. At least I think that's what they were doing. They sat at the coffee table rolling dice for hours last night," Mulder told her.

"What did Frohikie think?"

"He's acting just like you. He made me steam broccoli."

"You steamed broccoli?" Scully laughed.

"Yes. I even thought she ate it until I was cleaning up and found in wadded in her napkin."

"You cleaned up?" Dana asked, arching an eyebrow and smiling genuinely, before being interrupted.

"Hey Dana," Colton called to her, from the door. His eyes moved over her petite frame. She provided one more reason he had to dislike her loose canon of a partner. "Do you have plans this weekend? I thought maybe we could go to dinner sometime."

The direct, even blunt, invitation caught Scully off guard. How should she answer him? Technically she was free to see whomever she liked, so why would an evening with handsome, successful Tom Colton feel like betraying Mulder? And more importantly, why should she care if it were?

"I…uh…Actually I have plans this weekend," Scully stammered.

Of course she did, Colton thought. If he wanted to get anywhere with Dana Scully, he would have to stop being presumptuous. She was a far cry from the docile, empty-headed women he typically dated. "How about next week? Maybe lunch? How's Monday?" he asked taking a more casual approach.

"Yeah, yes that might work," she said, still somewhat surprised. "I'll meet you at the restaurant on the ground floor."

"No. I know you say you like the chicken salad there but you really like half pound burgers at Joe's." Tom tried to show more familiarity with Scully's personal habits than he had right to. "Meet me there at noon."

Colton made the date with deliberate, emasculating boldness. Mulder wanted to say something, make some inappropriate comment, do something to mark Scully as officially _his_ but at that moment Ally's chestnut head bobbed at the door.

"Hey, did you tell her yet?" Ally asked her father. Scully watched as the child quickly kissed her father's cheek.

"No, I haven't had the chance," Mulder told her.

"You'll never guess, Miss Dana. He's sending me to St. John's! Isn't that crazy?"

"Very crazy since he isn't Catholic," Scully said not knowing what to make of this decision.

"Yeah but they figure my money is green enough to pay tuition," Mulder said.

"Congratulations Ally, it's a very good school," Scully told the girl. Colton glared, as he observed Scully's entire presence brighten with the proximity of Agent Mulder's little imp. "Tom this is Agent Mulder's daughter Ally. Ally this is Assistant Director Colton," Scully introduced the two.

"Yeah, Miss Dana is my dad's partner," Ally stated, creating an almost comical image of unspoken confrontation as she stared up at the much taller man.

"Yes she is," Tom agreed.

"So they spend a lot of time together." Her tone was less than childlike.

"That's how it is when you're in the FBI," Tom replied.

"Come on Ally, you have an appointment." Mulder stepped up to put an end to this unsettling scene.

"Appointment?" Scully asked before she could remind herself that it was none of her business. She knew she should give him space to set his own rules and boundaries with his daughter; she'd demand that if their roles were reversed, had demanded it. She forbid her mind to travel down that path, posted a huge 'Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted' sign.

"Yeah I asked Dr. Kosseff…Karen if she could set aside some time to talk with Ally," Mulder explained. With his education in psychiatry he knew that speaking with a neutral third party would be invaluable for his daughter as she came to terms with her new life with him.

"Do you mind if Miss Dana walks me over?"

"Actually, we should return to the meeting," Tom cut in hoping the matter would be settled, Mulder would be off and Scully would be seated at the conference table without this crazy man's watchful eye.

"Sorry, no. I'm taking you," Mulder answered Ally. He was not yet sure where he and Scully stood on the subject of Ally and he was not about to give anyone, even her, a reason to accuse him of shirking his responsibility.

"Please..." Ally whined and made big eyes, hoping it would have its desired effect and he would give in. It was a maneuver Scully recognized from years of having her father wrapped around her little finger. "I want to talk to her."

"It's okay Mulder. I don't mind," Scully volunteered.

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Fine, I'll be there to pick her up," Mulder relented.

"Take good notes," Scully told him, glad for the excuse to get out of the meeting.

"You can have the next get out of jail free card, I promise," Ally smiled at her father, as she and Scully walked past.

They walked down the long corridor and to the elevator bank. "Miss Dana," Ally began, pushing the button. "Will you take me to get my school uniform?" she trailed off, not having a very good reason why Mulder couldn't take her.

"I'm sure your father will take you. Trust him. He knows what he's doing," Scully said holding back a small chuckle.

"He doesn't know about all the _other_ things," Ally said as she rolled her eyes. The elevator arrived and they stepped inside. Once the electronic doors closed and they were alone Ally began again, "…I need pads."

Scully kept her face impassive although she was surprised and amused at the real reason Ally wanted to speak with her alone. "You've had a period before?" Scully asked jumping into doctor mode before taking into account how difficult this must be for Ally. She hardly knew Scully but thrown between a consummate professional, albeit friendly woman and a stranger of a father, what could she do?

"A few times."

"Does your cycle occur on a regular basis?"

"I don't know. It happens when it happens."

"And you aren't having any problems with cramps or anything?"

"I'm fine. I know what to do. I just need some pads."

Scully considered her answer. She doubted she was ready to take on such a significant part in the young girl's life "You can tell your father. He'll get what you need," she said, telling herself that it was best not to come between Mulder and his fledgling relationship with his daughter. An alternative adult for her to run to would hardly be helpful. All good reasons Scully assured herself to advise Ally to talk to Mulder.

"I don't want him to know!" Ally said vehemently.

Scully tried not to laugh because Ally was being so serious. "It's okay. He's a grown man. He knows about these things," she reassured the young girl but Ally's face remained unchanged. "He's going to know sooner or later."

"Please…"

"Alright, here is what you can do," Scully said. "The bottom drawer of his dresser is my drawer. You will find any supplies you need in there. I'll make sure it gets restocked." The electronic doors opened and they stepped out of the elevator.

"Thanks."

"And you know what helps if you're feeling kind of blah…" Scully decided to add something that more resembled maternal advice. "Anything chocolate."

"Really?"

"Yeah, just tell him you'd like some cookies or brownies or even a candy bar. He'll never know."

Ally walked beside Scully into Dr. Kosseff office.

"Hello Dana," Karen greeted the agent warmly.

"Hi Karen," Scully shook hands with the middle aged woman. "This is Ally. I believe she's your four o'clock."

"Yes, hello Ally," Karen smiled at her.

"I didn't know you were seeing family members," Scully said.

"I'm not officially. The bureau doesn't give me that much time, but I want a change of pace from my usual cases. I'm considering retiring from the FBI and going into private practice, maybe adolescent psychology," Karen told her.

"You've been to see Dr. Kosseff?" Ally asked Scully.

"Our work, our cases are sometimes very difficult. It helps to talk to about them from time to time," Scully said hoping that her example would encourage Ally to be open. "Agent Mulder will be in to pick her up in about an hour," Scully said.

"Good, I'll speak with him then," Karen replied.

"Are you going to tell him what I say?" Ally asked.

"No, anything you tell me is confidential but I will discuss what he can do to help you, to make this adjustment easier for you," Karen told the child. Ally shrugged.

Scully turned to leave but was wrapped in Ally's arms before she could get to the door. "Thanks, Miss Dana," came Ally's muffled little voice.

"I'll see you later," Scully replied, taken back by the impromptu gesture. She patted Ally's back.

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AN: Cartomancy— The study of cards particularly in reference to fortunes and the future.


	6. Chapter 5

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"So come on, Dana, you and Agent Mulder?" Colton asked with strained playfulness. He needed to know the extent of their involvement in order to gauge his chances with her.

"What about Mulder?" Scully asked with mock naiveté.

"You know the rumors," he replied, taking a sip of his soda.

"Oh yeah, I guess. I've gotten good at ignoring them," she said. Scully was acutely aware that her name was frequently linked to her partners and although it could be frustrating, it could also be comforting to know that other female agents considered him off limits. Now if she could just get that message to Shannon. After all the woman worked in the mail pool. She should know the latest gossip. "Are you trying to settle the bets?"

"No, just curious. You two have worked together for a long time now and neither of you seem to have obvious external interests. Tongues will wag," Colton said maintaining the superficial lightness of the conversation.

"Will they indeed?" Scully asked obtusely, although she saw through his attempted levity.

"So are the rumors true Mrs. Spooky?" he asked, hoping he hadn't crossed the line. Having known Scully for several years, Colton was acquainted with her red headed temper.

"Come on Tom, I don't like to dignify gossip and speculation," Scully answered drinking her iced tea.

"Yeah but we're just a couple of friends talking," Colton said as he spread some mustard on his hamburger bun.

"Honestly Tom off the record, I don't know what we are," Scully began explaining, not that she owed him as much. "Mulder is my partner and my friend. I trust him. Beyond that I don't know, but no there is no torrid affair going on when the lights go down."

"I'm sure his daughter complicates everything," Colton pointed out the recent developments in Agent Mulder's life.

"No she doesn't. Why would she?"

"Well, she has to change things, for him anyway, maybe not now but eventually. I can't imagine he will continue as a field agent much longer. I imagine he will get a desk job or get out all together," he led her through the logical process to its logical conclusion. "And what about you? I can't imagine you want to give it all up to play mommy."

"You don't know, Mulder. He's still trying to get the X Files reopened," Scully said irritated at the defensive note in her voice. She feared that Colton was right and that if the X Files weren't reopened soon Mulder would let it go.

"Has he asked you if you want them reopened?" Colton asked, certain that the self-centered alien hunter had not. "He has a whole new dimension in his life. It's only fair that you reevaluate yours. You ever think about settling down yourself?"

Scully drew in a breath to answer, her mouth suddenly dry and no words coming to her mind. Fortunately, she was saved the trouble as Colton's cell rang just a few seconds before hers.

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"We haven't released the body yet, if you'd like to examine it yourself," the coroner said. He was an older gentleman dressed in a lab coat, a badge pinned to the lapel, identified him as Roy Huntington.

"No, that won't be necessary," Scully assured him, relieved that the procedure had already been performed before she and Mulder arrived in Martha's Vineyard. "I studied the report, you faxed. It was very thorough." Although pouring over screaming, technicolor photos of another eight year old girl ripped open from the inside out was hardly a more enviable task.

"When we found the heart cut out of her dress we called you," said Huntington.

"Yes the MO matches our perpetrator," Scully said brushing over the all too familiar details of the case.

All three turned to look down the hall as they heard the footfalls echoing swiftly toward them.

"Hello Agents," Colton greeted them. "We have the parents detained for questioning. I thought you might like to question them first." He made it seem as though he were doing them a huge procedural favor but in truth he was avoiding telling Mr. and Mrs. Hamond the awful truth, that their daughter was dead.

"We'll handle it," Scully said steeling herself against the most intense and personal of her duties. Speaking with family and loved ones was worse even than performing the autopsy. Colton led her to the door to one of the interrogation room. Mulder followed.

He and Scully stepped through the door. A tall, burnette, middle-aged woman was seated beside a tanned man whose hair shown with blonde highlights even in the harsh lighting of a federal building.

"Please, please tell me something. Is she going to be okay? She could still make it couldn't she?" the woman pleaded, as she dissolved into hears.

"I'm Jason Hamond," the man introduced himself as though this were a dry legal proceeding. "This is my wife Angie." The adolescent boy seated with his back against the wall went ignored by all but Mulder. "It's okay. I know what you have to say. They don't call you here when they are alive. They call you to the hospital."

"Why? Why weren't we called to the hospital?" Angie asked looking desperately at Scully, as she clung to the fantasy that her daughter was alive.

Mulder observed Scully take a few deep breaths, her pulse had obviously begun to race. Well, obvious to him. "She didn't…" Mulder began "…your daughter…"

"Katherine," Jason informed him.

"I'm very sorry but Katherine is gone," Mulder said aloud what Angie had been forcing herself not to think about.

"NO! NO!" She turned into her husband's arms.

"I'm Agent Mulder," Mulder said having walked to squat in front of the boy. "You must be Katherine's older brother."

"Yeah," he answered his eyes seeming to focus for the first time.

"I know this isn't a good time to talk but we are going to find out what happened to your sister," Mulder assured him. "If you could explain a few things that will help us catch the guy who hurt Katherine."

"I don't know anything," the kid said, his gaze drifting.

"Can you tell me your name?" Mulder asked, keeping his tone calm.

"Adam."

"Okay Adam, did you notice anything unusual? Have you seen anyone watching your sister? Has anything odd happened in the last few weeks?"

"No."

"Did your sister go anywhere that she wouldn't usually go?"

"No."

"Have any of you," Mulder said, turning back to the parents opening up the questioning to the entire family, "seen or received a playing card? Maybe in the mail."

Angie and Jason looked at one another bewildered.

"Yeah, today at school," Adam told him. "It was stuffed in my locker.

"The Queen of Diamonds?" Mulder confirmed.

"How do you know that?" Jason asked.

"It's a sort of calling card," Mulder asked but kept his attention on Adam. "If we could get that card it might give us some more clues."

"Sure," Adam shrugged.

"If you would like I could get you a backstage look at how we process evidence," Mulder offered. It was against the rules and he would likely catch some heat but Mulder wanted this boy to know and see all that was being done to bring his family justice. His parents were in no position to understand what he was going through but he certainly did.

"What are we supposed to do?" Jason asked. "Are they going to interrogate us? Can we go home? When can we take Katherine?"

"Yes, sure. You are free to take your family home, although they might bring you back for more questioning. If it is alright I'll stop by tomorrow for the card."

Jason nodded his consent. The broken family stumbled from the room, Jason supporting his wife and their lone child trailing behind.

"Are you okay?" Scully began the moment they were alone.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Mulder exhaled.

"How did you know it would be diamonds?" Scully asked. No matter how many times she witnessed it, Mulder uncanny ability to see into a perpetrator's actions always left her astonished.

"Katherine and her family live in Martha's Vineyard, per capita one of the wealthiest areas in the country. I guessed that for this victim our killer would choose diamonds. But there is something else going on here. Martha's Vineyard. My hometown. Remember how Roche used his knowledge of my past to his advantage. It's not a coincidence," he said as he sat on one of the cushioned chairs.

"So what should we do now?" Scully asked, sitting beside him.

"Nothing. I'll handle this. I can stay up here for a few days, find out what I can."

"No, Mulder. I don't like it. Not here in Martha's Vineyard on a case like this," Scully said tactfully tiptoeing around the more personal issues, in their perfected pas de deux. "Besides we aren't on our own anymore. We work in the Violent Crimes Division. There is procedure, protocol. You can't charge ahead your own way anymore." Scully placed a hand lightly on his shoulder.

"I'm fine Scully. I can do this. I have connections here. I can investigate this one from the inside."

"No Mulder, Let's finish reviewing the evidence and go back to D.C.," said Scully. She was not adverse to throwing the book out the window but she was hesitant.

"I want to stay. I can help them," Mulder told her, thinking of the quiet sisterless boy following behind his parents. "You go back and keep Colton and the others off my back."

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	7. Chapter 6

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Scully walked up to her mother's front door and rang the bell. She found her mother's eager enlistment in Ally's care plan a bit unsettling. Maggie's involvement said something about Mulder's place in her family. Admittedly, Scully reminded herself, it was none of her business but a petulant part of her wanted to say, 'Hey, when did _my _mom become _your_ back up plan?' The front door opened.

"Hello Dana," Maggie greeted her.

"Hi, Mom," Scully walked inside and hugged her mother. They stepped into the kitchen, which had always been the place where Maggie visited with her children. The living room was for guests not family. "Where's Ally?" Scully asked and it occurred to her that she had missed the girl.

"In my bedroom. I told her she could play with some make-up. I thought she would want to greet you though," Maggie said putting on an apron. Scully gave a short chortle.

"You allowed an eleven year old to play with make-up and you're surprised she didn't come out to say hello? I'd be surprised if she came out for a nuclear attack. I'll go look in on her. See if I can't stop her from turning into Bozo the clown," Scully said as she started back to her mother's bedroom. She peered in through the door to see Ally sitting on a small stool in front of the mirrored dresser. The young girl was concentrating as she applied lipstick, then she sat up to inspect her work.

"Hey, Ally."

"Miss Dana," Ally ran to hug her and pulled her into the room. "When did you get home? Where's Mulder?"

"I got back late last night. He's still working on a few things. He'll be home in a few days," Scully told her taking a place on the foot of the bed while Ally returned to the stool.

"Do you think maybe I can wear lipstick to school?"

"Not that color, it's a little too orange for you," Scully answered and handed her a tissue. "Here try this one." Scully selected a lip-gloss with a caramel tint. She willfully overlooked how eager the young girl was for her approval.

"Can I stay with you now that you're back?" Ally asked and wiped her lips.

"I have to work."

"That's okay. Mulder put me in a car pool and I stay at Paige's house until he picks me up," Ally explained.

"He's really thought everything out."

"I like staying here with Mrs. Maggie but Paige and I haven't been able to hang out all week," Ally said as she carefully put on the gloss.

"I'll give your dad a call and see if it's okay."

"Cool, just don't talk to Paige's mom," said Ally. "How do you put this on?" She held up a tube of mascara.

"And why shouldn't I talk to Paige's mom?" Scully asked opening the mascara.

"Because…she kept asking about you. She has a brother she wants to fix you up with…and I kind of told her you were seeing Mulder."

"Ally! Why would you do that?"

"Because you're _suppose_ to like him," Ally told her.

"I do like Mulder. I care for him very much," Scully said. "Look up."

Ally did as instructed and Scully began brushing the thick, black, paint onto her lashes. "That's not what I mean. You know, like kissing and everything," she explained. Ally's thoughts on her father's romantic life were not wholly unexpected.

"Is that what your stomach ache was about last weekend?"

"Kind of," Ally confessed. "I didn't think you would tell him to stop giving me junk food," she complained.

"Serves you right," Scully said as she applied mascara to Ally's other eye. "Why is it so important to you that we manifest our feelings physically?"

"Because if you guys were together, _really_ together, it would be real…tangible," Ally spoke, batting her eyes and looking into the mirror. It struck Scully how intently Ally had been observing her, how she spoke, how she moved. She was perhaps, the first formidable female the child had found and Ally was eager to emulate the delicate balance between femininity and decorum that was synonymous in Dana Scully.

"Tangible?" Scully asked. It was not the first time Ally's vocabulary had superseded her age.

"Yeah, possessing physical properties, able to be touched," Ally informed her. The word was still new and she had the definition fresh in her mind. "We could be like a family. I've never really had that. Wouldn't it be perfect?" Ally pinned her with a stare, her painted features caught somewhere between childhood guilelessness and adult manipulation.

"Even the best families aren't perfect. Ally, he and I have known each other for a long time. We are well established in one another's life," Scully said, although she remembered that look in his eyes as they stood in his hallway. Had he seen that desire returned in her fixed gaze? Had he known that she had been ready to give herself to him, to allow the momentum, which had built between them to reach its terminal velocity? "If anything more than a close friendship were going to develop between us, it already would have." Scully could not encourage Ally in any false hopes. How could she move forward with Mulder? If they failed to reach a timely happily ever after it would disappoint this little girl so very deeply. Fortunately, Scully was prevented from further conversation as Maggie joined them.

"Lunch is on the table. Dana can you believe Ally's never had tomato soup and grilled cheese before?" Maggie said ushering them into the kitchen.

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"Morning," Scully greeted Mulder as he walked into AD Colton's outer office. She was seated on the overstuffed couch in front of the secretary's desk. There were two cups of coffee on the table in front of her. "Thanks, for showing up." Mulder took one of the cups. Technically, he alone had been called into this meeting. "And for looking after Ally."

"No problem, I enjoyed having her around," Scully said although she had intended to caution him against using her as his personal babysitter. "How did everything go?"

"I didn't really find anything useful, but I spent some time with my mother. I had a lot to tell her. I plan to take Ally up for Thanksgiving," Mulder shrugged.

"Good," Scully said. "I'm glad."

"Agents," Colton opened his office door and motioned them inside. They both refused to sit down. "Agent Mulder there has been a development in this case. I'm very sorry but you are going to have to be reassigned."

"If you take Mulder off of this case, I walk out with him," Scully threatened and Mulder reveled in her demonstration of loyalty.

"Why Agent Scully, I thought there was no torrid affair going on when the lights went down," Colton said, regretting it the instant he had spoken.

"You can't take him off of this case for arbitrary personal reasons," Scully's voice rose as she spoke, anger flashing in her blue hot eyes. Her hand itched to reach up and slap Tom Colton across his arrogant face. "Young girls are being murdered. Agent Mulder is the best profiler you have. He is your best chance to solve this case and you know it."

"I have no choice. The crime team found a fingerprint at the scene that matched one found at Linda Montclair's home. You're not in your own renegade department anymore. This isn't the X Files. There are real victims and real perpetrators," Colton said, standing behind his desk. "If word gets out that one of our investigators has any possible connection the victim, our evidence will be thrown out of court faster that you can say 'little green men.'"

Mulder fought the urge to remind the AD that Reticulan skin tone is gray. He needed to maintain a professional rapport with this man. After all with the fate of the X Files still undetermined he needed all of the allies he could garner. "There isn't any conflict of interest here. I knew Linda years ago and even then for a few months at most," Mulder replied.

"You are the father of her child. A child you have taken on to raise," Colton interjected. "Procedure dictates that you are no longer fit to serve in this investigation."

Mulder and Scully shared a fleeting look. With the X Files closed, if they were separated professionally, there was no guarantee they would be permitted to remain partners.

"He's right Scully," Mulder was forced to concede. "You have to stay," Mulder said and they both knew he intended to keep her involved to pass him information.

Colton knew it too. "Look, I can suppress the fingerprint for the time being. I'll keep you on the case as long as possible," He told them. "I'm sorry. I want you on this team Mulder. I know your success rate on this kind of case and I want this bastard behind bars as badly as you do."

Mulder and Scully turned to exit the office, Mulder not missing the chance to place his hand at the small of Scully's back, a neon sign flashing, 'Look what I have the right to do! Look at what she lets me do!'

As the door closed she pushed him away, fed up at being a pawn in this alpha male contest between Mulder and Colton. One of the reasons she enjoyed her work on the X Files was that Mulder was not usually prone to such juvenile behavior, not in his treatment of her anyway.

But before she could get any distance from him, Mulder leaned in close to her ear. "Oh and Scully, I would never turn off the lights," he whispered. He was rewarded as a distinct Scully blush swept across her cheeks. 'And score! Nothin' but net,' Mulder thought.

"Don't make promises you can't keep Agent Mulder," Scully said her voice low.

His eyes almost bugged out of his head. Scully never bantered innuendo around with him. He often tossed her a line that she brushed off, and sure she something slung a few fond insults but blatant flirting, in the work place. "Oh you know me to be a man of my word, Agent Scully."

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	8. Chapter 7

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"See. Mrs. Maggie took it up a little," Ally told her father as she modeled a new dress for him. "I thought I could wear it to mass with Miss Dana…If you don't mind me going. Most of my friends from school go."

"Yeah, sure if Scully wants to take you," Mulder answered.

"Yeah, as long as it's okay with you," Ally assured him.

"Scully can take you anywhere, but right now it's your bedtime. You have school tomorrow," Mulder told her. He had not yet gotten the hang of issuing parental directives. Over the last few weeks he didn't know if he was being too demanding or if she needed more direction.

She quickly unzipped the dress and untied the ribbon at the waist. "Miss Dana took me bra shopping too. I mean, I didn't think that was something you wanted to do."

"Yeah that's fine," he said, only too happy that without discussion Scully had taken on that particular task. He knew someone would need to attend to the feminine aspects of Ally's upbringing but he would rather go another round with the flukeman than bridge that gap.

Ally headed back to the bedroom and Mulder began fluffing the pillow on his couch. He had given her his bedroom to allow her some privacy. He preferred sleeping in the living room anyway.

In a few moments, Ally emerged from the bathroom in a few moments scrubbed and clean and ready for sleep.

"Ready for bed?"

"Yeah, but can I read for a while?" She asked holding out her library book.

"Sure, what have you got?"

"_The Mixed-Up Files,"_ Ally said bouncing to the couch and snuggling down. When he gave permission for her to read Mulder had intended she read in his room. But what the hell, he thought. They're only young once. He sat next to her. "It's really good, about these kids who run away to a museum. Wouldn't that be cool? Being in a museum with no other people…over night? Dr. Kosseff says I would never make it. My imagination would get the better of me. I mean artifacts could be cursed or robbers could break in," Ally chattered away.

Mulder smiled. Yes, this was his daughter, an abundance of imagination, willing to believe anything. Maybe he should get her a poster. "How do you like Dr. Kosseff?" Mulder asked. Karen had warned him that, in her professional opinion, Ally likely suffered from what she termed, 'Uninhibited Reactive Attachment Disorder'. Due to her changing environments and her mother's failure to give Ally much attention or affection, she tended to bond too quickly or to create inappropriate attachments with the people in her life.

"That depends on what you mean."

"What do you mean…what I mean? It's a yes or no question. Do you like Dr. Kosseff?" Mulder wondered if this was how Scully felt questioning him, frustrated with double talk and ready for him to come to the point.

"If you are asking if I like talking with her, sure. She's cool. But if you are asking, if I would like _you_ liking her, the answer is no," Ally explained her feelings, as she pillowed her head on her father's shoulder.

"It's okay. I'm not interested in Karen. She's a nice lady but she is married," Mulder said resting an arm around her shoulders. "Are you old enough to keep a secret?"

"Yeah!" Ally beamed up at him.

"If I tell you this, you can't tell anyone…I'll be trusting you."

"Tell me!" she encouraged.

"If I were going to be interested in anyone it would be Scully," Mulder admitted realizing his mistake even before Ally raised up to swat her hand gently across his chest.

"I knew you were in love with her! You _have _to tell her!" she cried in excitement.

"No, that is exactly what I can't do," Mulder said sternly.

"Why not? She loves you. She told me."

Mulder should have left it, should have ignored her. He was being goaded and he knew it. But she hit her target like a skilled archer. How could he resist such a leading statement? "What did she tell you?" He tried to keep his voice from sounding like an anxious adolescent. "What did she say?"

"She told me about the drawer," Ally answered.

"What drawer?"

"The drawer in your room, where she keeps her stuff."

"No. That is just in case she needs to stay here when we're on a case. Work has been our top priority for such a long time that it is easy to confuse it with something more. But it isn't," Mulder explained.

"She's in love with you," Ally repeated, a stubborn light in her eye, reminding him again of his iron willed sister. "She keeps lotion in there that smells like raspberries. That isn't just in case she needs to stay here for the night."

"We work together, Ally. That is all." Even as he said it, Mulder smiled at the thought of Dana Scully keeping scented lotion in his dresser drawer. "There are certain lines that cannot be crossed. One day you will understand." He cringed, hating how condescending he sounded.

"I understand that you love her and if you don't tell her someone else will. Other guys notice her, you know."

"Ally, listen to me. You are not to interfere. This is between Scully and me. Do you understand?" Mulder waited for Ally to nod. She slid back into the crook his arm.

"Yes sir," she answered him. Most parents would have been pleased with the respectful tone but Mulder loathed it. He didn't want to be 'sir.' He wanted to be Dad and Daddy, a confidante and friend. Since she had been hurled into his life he had acted out of a sense of duty and responsibility. Lost and bewildered by this 4'5", 65 lb Pandora's Box, he finally found the ephemeral hope lurking under the noise and confusion. He wanted to be her father, her teacher, wanted to deserve her.

"You know Ally no matter what happens between me and Scully you have your own friendship with her. I've known her for years and I've never seen her taken with anyone the way she is you. She cares for you very much," Mulder whispered over her head.

Ally looked up at him, in the fond yet almost pitying way he was more familiar with in older women. "It's because I'm the only kid _you _have," she replied.

"There's something we need to talk about," Mulder began. He had not thought about having this conversation tonight but the mood seemed right. He hoped she felt comfortable and secure.

"What?" Ally asked.

"They are investigating Linda's death," Mulder stated but he was more interested in listening to the every nuance in the inflection of her response.

"Why? I thought she killed herself," Ally said. She did not move away from him.

"They aren't sure now. The way the chair that she stood on fell suggests that it was staged. Someone wanted to make it look like she took her life. It might help the detectives to talk to you. I haven't told them anything yet, and I won't, unless you want to talk to them," Mulder told her everything as plainly as he could.

"Why would they want to talk to me?"

"You might tell them something useful, maybe you know her friends, or people she spent time with, or if she was seeing someone."

"She didn't tell me those things," Ally replied coming to terms with this news. "I think she did drugs. Sometimes she would sleep for days. Once I thought she was dead. She would barely move when I tried to wake her up."

"What did you do when that happened?"

"I don't know. Mostly I went to my friends house," Ally said, breaking his heart with her answer. "I'll do it. Linda wasn't a very good mother but if someone hurt her…They shouldn't get away with that. It's the right thing to do, isn't it?"

"I think so," he nodded. "I'll see if they want to question you."

"Will you go with me?" Ally asked gripping his hand and snuggling closely to him. Mulder detected the faint scent of strawberry shampoo. He held her for a few moments, savoring the feeling of her diminutive weight against his chest, as she slowly relaxed against him.

"Of course, I'll be right beside you the whole time."

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	9. Chapter 8

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Mulder sat for a while in solitude before Ally found him. He gave no verbal consent as she joined him on the rolled up carpet. They had arrived at his mother's home late the night before.

"Here we are on our first day of schools," Mulder said and showed her the photo album he had found banished in the attic. "I was starting fourth grade, so she must have been in second."

"This must be Halloween," Ally said pointing to a picture of him dressed as Joe DiMaggio and Samantha in a black leotard and a headband with fake cat ears sticking up on either side of her head.

"Yeah we had fun together, when she wasn't mad at me for being a buttmunch," Mulder said, with a small, wistful laugh then he grew quite. Now that he had told Ally of the missing girl who would have been her Aunt Samantha he did not know quite what to say.

"What stuff did you do together?" Ally asked.

"Lots of things, we rode bikes, went swimming. I taught her how to hit a baseball."

"Can you teach me too?" Ally asked.

"Sure," Mulder answered, coming back to the present, and putting his arm around his daughter.

"You still miss her?"

"Now and then, when I remember something she did, or things she liked."

"It isn't your fault, you know," Ally told him, slipping her small, cool hand through his arm. "You were just a kid too. It wasn't your job to keep her safe."

"I don't know. I think it is our job to protect the people we love," Mulder admitted. "Maybe that's the only reason we're here, maybe that's all love is in the end, a desire to keep the people you care for safe and happy."

"She looks happy," Ally pointed out, holding up the picture of Samantha sitting on top of a jungle gym, the same one he had on his desk at home. He had forgotten that his sister had been happy. For years he had concentrated on her fear, his memory making her into his shy, frightened satellite, but looking over the images of their short time together she was not that way at all. She had been joyous, even confident.

"She laughed a lot," Mulder said more to himself than Ally. He closed the picture book, signifying that he was done reminiscing. "Why don't you go get dressed. I'll see if I can find one of my old basket balls and we can play some one on one."

"Because you're like six feet tall. I'm not even four eleven," Ally told him, "like I'm gonna keep a basket ball away from you."

"Okay, we'll work on your hook shot."

Ally dashed out of the attic; Mulder followed at half her speed.

Then he heard his mother. "Fox…" she called, meeting him at the bottom step.

"Morning Mom," Mulder greeted her and noticed a distinct lack of breakfast smells. He did not want to inconvenience her but he perceived that she was trying to make them feel unwelcome.

"I've been waiting to talk to you," Tina spoke formally.

"Sure, shoot," he said, knowing his casual attitude unnerved her. She would not continue however.

"I think we should speak privately," she said leading the way to the second story porch.

"It's alright. Get ready. I'll be there in a minute," Mulder told Ally. He watched her walk out of sight, then turned to follow his mother.

"We should talk about this girl," Tina said constructing a solid wall of tension at light speed.

"Her name is Ally," Mulder replied, his posture stiffening much as it had when he was a belligerent adolescent.

"Fox, you haven't thought this through. Fatherhood. You know nothing about raising a child let alone a daughter," Tina continued, not consciously aware that her need to sabotage her son stemmed from a desire to keep Samantha in the forefront of her mind. Although his path had been painful, Tina rejoiced in her son's pain. It was all that kept her daughter relevant and if Mulder never healed, she never had to entirely accept that Samantha was gone. And now, in walks this boisterous child with her daughter's determined eyes and her son's resilient spirit, and for the first time Tina saw the potential for her son to heal, to move on, and create a life where his sister, his mother were relegated to the side line.

"It doesn't matter. My mind is made up," Mulder stated.

"Your job, Fox. Your lifestyle. You are in no way equipped to parent her. Place her into foster care," Tina gave her unsolicited advice.

"STOP IT!" Ally burst onto the porch, screaming. "Leave him alone! He's my dad and you can't change that!" Ally and Tina glared at each other like predatorily cats sizing up a potential encroacher. "I hate you!" Ally ran out as abruptly as she had entered.

Mulder stared after her, dumbfounded, witnessing the extent of his daughter's temper for the first time.

"I believe she made my point," Tina said, satisfied.

"Stop it. You're being too hard on her," Mulder said. "You attacked the one relationship that she's beginning to trust. How would you expect her to react?"

"I didn't expect her to be eavesdropping."

The tendons in his jaw clenched involuntarily and he eyes narrowed. "Well sorry if I'm not distant and callous enough to live up to your example of parenthood, but if you will excuse me, I have an upset daughter to take care of." He walked away leaving her alone on the porch.

He found Ally splayed on the floor of his bedroom, wailing like a wild-banshee, reminding him of the dozens of times he had consoled Samantha in such a state. He had been expecting this moment, nervously anticipating it, yet it still shocked him, like an ice pick to the temporal lobe the first him he noticed Ally's resemblance to his sister. He thought it would be the eyes or a laugh but a volatile tantrum was just as fitting. As a boy he had become an expert at managing and predicting Samantha's moods. He remembered the late nights, inventing stories and songs and games to distract her from the angry shouting or, worse yet the unbearable silence.

"Hey," Mulder said sitting beside Ally. His Oxford textbooks had done nothing to prepare him for his own child's behavior. "That was quite a show." He placed a hand on her back. "You know something, I've wanted to tell her off like that for years."

"Really?" Ally turned to face him, paying him a meager half smile.

"Yeah," Mulder said pulling her into his lap. "It doesn't matter what she says. You're my daughter, Ally. I love you and you are staying with me. Nothing is going to change that."

"Ever?"

"Ever."

"Pinky promise?" she asked holding up her hand and extending the smallest didget.

"Pinky promise," Mulder agreed laughing now that Ally had calmed. He looped his pinky around hers. He placed a small kiss on her cheek.

"I love you too, Dad," Ally said. Her impassioned skermish with his mother initiated her into his family far more effectively that DNA test or DCF paperwork ever could. Although they both knew it was more than that. It was whatever had directed her to fight so passionately for her place in his life, whatever had directed him to go to her and comfort her. Mulder held her as a complicit bond grew between them. They learned together that far from an ephemeral, fleating emotion, love was a choice, they must make consistently over a lifetime. "Can we go home now?"

"Yes, we don't have to stay," Mulder replied, complying with her request. "But Ally, though I admit my mom was out of line, she is an adult and my mother and since we are guests in her home, you shouldn't have yelled at her. We'll go home but first you are going to apologize," Mulder said feeling his way through this new dimension of parental authority.

"No I am not!" Ally insisted, turning away.

"Yes, you are."

"I won't mean it," Ally replied.

"That's okay we'll work on sincerity later."

"I will never mean it! I hate her!"

"No, you don't," Mulder said as he ran his hand through her soft, brown hair. "You dislike her. You can dislike her all you want, but don't hate her. When you allow yourself to hate someone it changes you. I wouldn't want you becoming angry. Nothing is worth that."

Ally nodded.

It took Mulder only a few moments to pack, as they had not been at his mother's house for long. He walked down the wooden staircase with both of their bags in his hands. Ally sulked a few steps behind.

"Fox, you are overreacting. There is no reason to leave," Tina said, standing at the door.

"No, it's okay Mom. I shouldn't have pushed this on you. It's too soon. Maybe you should come and visit us," Mulder told her calmly, then paused. "Ally has something to tell you."

Ally gave a pleading last minute look to her father, then reluctantly said, "I'm sorry I shouldn't have said those things." She tilted her head at her father in a clear expression of, 'there happy now'.

It was obvious that the apology was half hearted at best but Mulder could only push her so far. "Now say good-bye Ally," he instructed.

"Good-bye Ally," she said staring straight ahead as she walked past him to the car.

"I'll call you, Mom." Mulder said, leaving Tina at the door.

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	10. Chapter 9

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Gabled ceiling, large windows, hard wood floors, no closets, but what did you expect in a Colonial home? Scully thought as she looked around the empty bedroom, imagining her bed against the far wall and matching night stands on either side. Well no, maybe not matching. Hers would hold a small lamp, an Edith Wharton novel, and a bottle of lotion, the other—piles of files and clippings, a pair of reading glasses, a coffee mug, and multiple empty sunflower seed bags. Scully stepped over to look through the window, its antique, beveled glass casting a wavy pattern across her face.

"Is this weird?" Mulder entered the room.

"Mulder we once investigated a commune of amorous, religious, fundamentalists, who effectively disappeared without leaving a scrap of evidence, and you think house hunting is weird?"

Mulder shuffled his feet, looking for all the world like an unpopular teenager on his first date. "It's just…you and me…I don't know where I stand anymore. I know what I fee for you…" he stammered. "I know we aren't ready to live together and I'm not asking you to move in with me. But I can't do something as major as buy a home, unless I know that you could be happy there. You know, in a bizarre-oh world type scenario."

She smiled at him and the sun paled. Scully reached out her hand, placed it on his arm and pulled him a bit closer. She also was unsure where they were as a couple but in the subtext of his rambling she had heard 'I love you,' and far from the fight or flight response it usually engendered, she found it calming. "Mulder, this is not weird. It's exciting. Bizzarre-oh Mulder and bizarre-oh Scully will figure things out. They always do. After all, when have we ever been wrong together?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. She rose up on her toes and took his full bottom lip between hers.

Mulder was accustomed to being close to her. He had long been one of the few people allowed the privilege of invading her personal space, but at kissing close range, Mulder discovered that when he opened his eyes, he could see the dusting of cinnamon freckles across her nose, the small attractions to sunlight a tribute to the spirited tomboy she had been. Although she tried to keep them hidden beneath her put together professional mask, she could no longer hide them from him. It made him smile.

"It's nice to be allowed to do that," she confessed stepping back.

"No one was stopping you before," Mulder told her taking her hand as they left the empty bedroom. "We should talk about Christmas," he changed the subject.

"What about it?"

"Well, what are your thoughts on it?"

"Well, it originated from a pagan midwinter festival and came to encompass many traditions and practices from the Middle East and Europe," she orated, in a lecture equal to his longwinded ramblings.

"Come on, Scully, you know what I mean. Ally will want to spend it with you, with both of us," Mulder said as they walked downstairs.

"Bill and Charlie are both coming home this year. I don't get to see either of them very often," Scully told him, dropping his hand.

"Fine go visit, have dinner with them, go to Mass," Mulder said but she did not turn to look at him. "Invite them to visit us."

"Bill is going to be there."

"So. I know your family is important to you. I'll be on my best behavior. I won't say anything to provoke him," Mulder promised.

"There isn't enough duct tape in the world."

"If you don't want me to be there that's fine," Mulder conceded, afraid of pushing her too far. Sure he had done it plenty of times in the past but that had been professional. As boundaryless as he was, he knew she needed her time and her space, to come to terms with the changes occurring between them.

"No. You're right. We should be together for Christmas. I'll talk to Mom. I'll go to Mass and eat dinner with them but I will spend Christmas with you."

Ally dashed in through the back door where she had been surveying the yard. "Look at the back yard! We could have a dog!"

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"Ready?" Scully asked, coming upon Ally who was chatting with her friend Paige.

"See you tomorrow," Paige said leaving to find her parents.

Ally fell into step with Scully and they made their way to the car. They got in and buckled up and Scully pulled out of the parking lot and into the traffic. "So do you want to grab some lunch or should we pick up Mulder first?"

Ally was quiet for some time, lost in thought. "I know you're going to sleep with my dad," she said at last, turning her head to look at Scully.

The abrupt subject change blindsided Scully, who was usually not surprised by anything. She did not know how to answer. To confess that she was attracted to Mulder would encourage the expectation that they become a couple, and to deny that their relationship was progressing in personal even romantic ways, would leave the child unprepared for such an eventuality.

Scully decided on, "I thought you wanted us to be together."

"I don't want him with anyone else," Ally admitted and paused. "I do want you guys together…but…"

"What?" Scully asked. Sensing the seriousness of the conversation she considered pulling over to give Ally her full attention, but did not.

"I saw how those men looked at Linda. They didn't even like her. I don't want to happen to you guys. I don't want you to mess everything up. I like being with both of you."

"Whoa, hold on a minute. Ally no matter what happens between me and Mulder, we respect each other. And anything we do together whether it's debating one of our cases or…" she faltered before continuing, uncertain if she should deal with Ally in such an adult manner, "having sex, it can never change how deeply we care for one another."

"You guys are in love?" Ally asked her expression softer as she smiled. It was something she suspected about her father and his partner, something she sensed in the calm, energy created when they were together, but having it admitted aloud was comforting.

"Yes Ally," Scully told her regretting that she had not yet confessed this to Mulder.

"And nothing can change that?"

"No sweetheart, nothing can change that," Scully assured her. "Things don't always end the way we would like them to but nothing can change how you feel."

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Scully removed her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. She took stock of the catastrophe formerly known as her living room. Her table and desk were covered in paperwork, an empty pizza box, beer and coke cans littered her coffee table, and Ally lay sprawled and sleeping on her couch.

"About time to call it a night," Mulder suggested. He stood behind her and began to massage her shoulders. He rarely knew when to stop working and had to watch her carefully for signs of fatigue as his cue to pack it in.

"It's getting late. I don't think we're going to make any more progress," she answered reaching up to touch his hand.

"Mind if I leave sleeping beauty here?" he asked tilting his head at the couch.

She turned and looked up at him. "You don't have to leave," she said, standing and not releasing his hand. "Come to bed, Mulder." The boldness of her gesture shocked even her as it was in no way mirrored by her insecurities.

He made no reply. He had known that he wanted her, had realized it in a thousand heartbreaking moments when she was in hospitals, or taken by a madman, or dying. But he knew that he could not initiate this change in their relationship. She had to come to terms with her attraction to him, had to feel a degree of control. Now that the moment was here he was glad he had waited.

Silently, they walked down the hall together and into the bedroom. Mulder settled on her bed, displaying the calm confidence currently failing her. Despite her seductive bravado in the living room her knees threatened to buckle. She closed the door and her stomach clenched, though she did not know why. She _wanted_ this, the anticipated culmination of their mutual history. How could her resolve falter as she turned the lock, finally shutting out the rest of the world to be with him? No bees, no brothers, no ex-girlfriends. She pursed her lips, and released a steady breath.

"Come here," Mulder said reaching out a hand. She sat next to him.

"Mulder I…I'm…" she faltered.

"It's okay Scully. Tell me," Mulder said and waited for her to answer.

"I don't deal with passion well."

"Really? Tell me something I don't know," Mulder quipped trying desperately to suppress a laugh. Was it really going to be this easy? Were all of the intimate new details he had permission to learn about her going to be nothing more than what he already knew?

She gazed at him sharply.

"I've known you for years Dana Scully. I know you don't like to lose control," he said running his hand gently over her arm. "It's okay. It's just me. We've spent the night together plenty of times, even in this bed once."

"That was different," Scully told him, keeping her eyes cast ever so slightly away from him, a subtle gesture that signaled her insecurities to him like an emergency flair. "This changes everything."

"It's still just us. We decide what happens," he said placing a soft kiss in her hairline. "I want this to be right for both of us."

She turned to look at him fully and a smile dawned across her face. Mulder could hardly breathe as he committed everything about the way she looked to memory the trust in her broadening smile, the fragile hope in her pale blue eyes.

She leaned into him and brushed her lips to his, kissing him softly before he pulled her closer to him. Her hands brushed across his chest and gradually Scully began unbuttoning his white starched shirt. She pulled it over his arms and tossed it to the floor, his bare chest causing her heart to leap into her throat, the knot of nervous tension threatening to choke her.

His hands went to work on her tooled leather belt. He tugged at the silver buckle, and the accessory joined his shirt on the floor. The removal of the garment did nothing to help her sudden attack of modesty and self-doubt. Mulder was undeniably more experienced than her and used to women far more assured of their capabilities.

Scully reached for the sheet pulling it over both of them. She released a sound between a sigh and a chuckle as she realized how pathetically prudish the gesture was.

Mulder smiled, pulled the sheet away again and adjusted the pillows before leaning on one elbow. With his free hand, he fingered a lock of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. "Care to settle a bet I have going at the Hoover Building?" he asked. "Do you have any birthmarks?"

She gave a short but robust laugh. "Please, you've seen me naked before," she reminded him.

"No, dragging you from the artic while you are suffering from hypothermia and a virus of unknown origin does not count as seeing you naked."

She laughed again loudly. "How do we get past this?" Scully asked.

"Past what?"

"This," she said waving her hand between them. "You and me…We know each other too well. We're too comfortable. You're my best friend."

Without answering, Mulder leaned in and placed a kiss on her forehead. "Comfortable can be sexy as hell," as he spoke, his mouth so close to her skin, she could physically feel the words wander across her cheek. He explored her ear, and the connection between her jaw and throat.

Scully slid down to lie on the bed, lost in sensation. Mulder's hand trailed from just under her chin down her slender neck. Then he moved his hands under the hemline of her sweater, reaching all the way up to cup her breasts through her bra, while his lips continued to assault her throat.

Scully forced her eyes wide open, trying to dispel her growing arousal, determined to give him the same enjoyment he was so skillfully creating in her.

He lifted his head and surveyed this new Scully, her face flushed, plump lips parted and panting. This was not his Scully of the perfectly written field reports and pristine lab coats. This was a passionate woman with a growing appetite.

He pulled the sweater over her head and tossed it away moving quickly to her bra, which he unclasped and removed, revealing her breasts which, to her chagrin, were visibly reacting to his intent gaze. Mulder surveyed her like a connoisseur seeing a work of art in person for the first time, that he had spent a lifetime studying. "You are so beautiful," Mulder said in a deep tone Scully was not yet accustomed to hearing. She heard him expel a breath and looked into his eyes, his pupils dilated to such a degree that they looked almost black.

He traced each breast with his finger, then began drawing closer to the center of the right one, which ached under his touch. When at last he brushed his thumb across her pert nipple she dug her teeth into her lower lip, clasping at the sheet with her hands as he teased her. If he didn't undress her soon she was going to come in her slacks.

She felt his mouth, his tongue, caressing as he attended her left breast. Involuntarily her eyes closed tight and her head lulled back as she surrendered to his ministrations. Perhaps she could seduce him the next time around. She grinned as a wicked little thrill surged through her, realizing that there would be a next time, many, many next times.

He paused long enough to pull off her slacks but returned quickly to her lips, savoring the almost familiar taste again. Their chests pressed together skin upon skin, the pebble-hard evidence of her growing arousal shamefully obvious, as her desire to reciprocate the tender, tantalizing kisses increased to fever pitch.

Her breath quickened, and she could virtually hear the hammering of her heart as Mulder's mouth wreaked havoc on her senses. She moaned and moved restlessly on the bed. Mulder's mouth descended past her collarbone while she clenched her teeth. Every nerve in her body seemed on fire for him. Everywhere he touched became raw and exposed with requited lightening speed desire.

His hand glided over her, sliding over her cotton underwear and between her legs. His fingertips brush against the moisture soaking through her panties, but he did not tear off the last barrier keeping them apart. Instead he removed his own trousers and underwear. Then slipped his hand inside her panties and began a slow, relentless stroking.

Her legs parted in a shameless, automatic response of unprecedented intensity. "Please…" she gasped, every nerve aching with need. She drew in a long breath and Mulder's mouth returned to hers, open and hot in a merciless, searing kiss, his tongue an instrument of erotic decadence, causing her mind to resign control. Between her thighs, she felt his erection hard and straining.

When his mouth left hers Scully's head spun, floating on a sea of deep craving. She scarcely felt Mulder slip her panties off of her legs. He poised himself over her and she stared back at him in a moment of silent request and consent. He thrust forward, entering her slowly. Automatically, her hips lifted to him, wanting to be filled with him.

She heard the harsh sigh of satisfaction he exhaled, and then he thrust into her deeply setting a steady, increasing pace. He felt her internal muscles tighten around him, heard her cry out his name as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. In an act of wanton instinct, she thrust against him, driving herself closer to a trembling euphoria. He felt the rhythmic spasms tear through her body, and he thrust into her harder, burying himself to the hilt.

Dimly she was aware of Mulder's urgent, breathy voice whispering her surname and no matter how lost in sensation, how inappropriate it seemed, she chuckled. No one had ever used her surname in the throws of passion.

Mulder uttered a low guttural moan and she felt his entire body become tense and hard. He clung to her, his fingernails inadvertently digging into the easily marred ivory of her back. She thrilled in the knowledge that Mulder was taking pleasure in her, that he was buried deep inside her, that their bodies were joined together in this primal dance. Above her, she felt him, hard as stone as she continued to matched his madcap rhythm. He felt the explosion build along his shaft racing to its inevitable release and shuttered as he emptied himself inside her.

Slowly, substance and weight began to return and his breathing calmed, the dizzying heights he'd achieved leaving a profound calm in their wake. Mulder eased his heavy body from hers. Her eyes were half lidded and her breathing had an almost yawn like quality. "Stay awake Scully," he whispered, running his fingers through her titian hair.

Previously, he had only caught glimpses of a relaxed Scully. The woman many others called Dana. Occasionally she would appear exhausted over late night take away, in old sweats watching TV in a motel room, and Mulder treasured seeing the more unguarded, private side of his partner, but nothing compared with post-coital, sated Scully curled in his arms. "We're okay?" he asked.

Yet again she laughed, tossing her head back, her skin glowing with a fine sheen of perspiration. "We're fine, Mulder, infuckingcredible," she assured him. Mulder wrapped his warm, lean body around this woman who astounded him as no other. She was a study in contradictions. She had given him an earth shattering orgasm and five minutes later shocked him with the use of a simple expletive.

"You should swear more often, Scully. It's so sexy," he mumbled into her hair.

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	11. Chapter 10

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Her arm felt cramped and wilted as a withered bird's wing. She pulled it from under the cushion the couch. Something rattled in the kitchen and Ally opened one eye. She was still on Scully's couch.

"Morning," Mulder called from the other room.

"Morning," Ally answered opening the other eye.

"Want a pop tart?" he asked as he flipped the switch on the coffee pot.

"Um, we're still at Miss Dana's. She doesn't have pop tarts," Ally pointed out.

"I know. That's why I keep an emergency stash," Mulder replied. He rooted to the back of the pantry and found the box he had hidden there. He opened the metallic wrapper and joined his daughter in the living room.

Mulder didn't quite know how to start the 'why we woke up at Miss Dana's' conversation. He didn't even really know what euphemism to use: Scully and I went to bed together, had sex _-Oh God No_, made love _–as he would like to think. _But no matter how he expressed it, he knew Ally was too smart to pretend 'nothing happened'. Pausing for a moment, he came up with, "You know this means no more drinking o.j. from the carton anymore." He wanted to kick himself. Had the humor he had come to rely on impaired his ability to have one honest dialogue with his daughter?

"It's okay Dad. I know. And just so you know, we're here because of me, not you," Ally said sensing the start of an awkward conversation, which she could manage with much more finesse, even at eleven years old. "I only pretended to fall asleep last night so that you would stay."

Mulder exhaled and slumped onto the back of the couch, relieved that this was all so simple. "Remind me to raise your allowance," he said handing her the pastry.

"You don't give me an allowance, remember?" Ally told him, taking her first bite.

"So I'll double it," Mulder offered, sipping his coffee.

"Oh, you're so funny." Ally rolled her eyes.

"Mulder, quit feeding her junk food," Scully said entering from the hallway and heading for the coffee pot. Ally made a face.

"You still sure about this?" Mulder asked her.

"Yes, Daddy I want you to be happy," Ally chose her moment precisely.

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"Let's go." Mulder whined. He was hungry.

"You go. Bring me back a chicken salad with Italian dressing," Scully requested not looking away from the workstation computer, where she was going through the parole database.

"Come on, we need a break," Mulder pleaded fidgeting with a pencil lying on the table.

"You've been having a break all morning."

"That's because Colton has us barking up the wrong tree. You know that," Mulder said turning to face her and resting against the corner of the table.

"Agent Scully," Agent Sonders said stepping into the cubical, unannounced. 'We have to get back to an office with doors and walls,' Mulder thought. "Agent Mulder, we brought in the man your daughter identified from the photograph," Sonders told them.

Mulder recalled the image of Ally, vulnerable and ramrod straight, brow frozen as she answered the detective's questions. She only lost her composure once, when they asked her to identify Linda's acquaintances and then only because she thought she would have to see them in person. Once she understood she needed only to look at some photographs, her determined demeanor returned.

"AD Colton wants me and Agent Scully to question him," Sonders explained.

Mulder and Scully looked at one another. They both knew Colton chose Scully because it would cast more doubt on their continued partnership. Colton also knew that Scully's participation would ensure Mulder's undivided attention. He had not gotten to be an Assistant Director by overlooking ways to manipulate other agents.

Mulder followed them to the interrogation rooms but joined the rest of the team in the dark room. He watched Scully and Agent Sonders from behind the two-way mirror. Colton refused to allow him access to the witness as his quasi connection to the case put his position on the crime team in jeopardy.

"You were identified as one of Linda Montclair's clients," Agent Sonders informed Joel DeNea.

"There is no way you can prove anything other than the fact that I knew her. I admit that," he replied. He wore a tailored business suit, and his thick hair was scrupulously styled. He appeared to be a man who chose to pay women for their favors out of preference rather than need.

"Your name was found in her address book," Scully continued.

"So? I already said I knew her. Why shouldn't I be in her address book?" he asked, pushing back from the table.

"This book was used for the men who paid her for sex," Sonders said, hoping this would put some pressure on the man behind the table, to be more cooperative.

"You don't know that, and any clients, she may or may not have had, aren't going to fess up about it to the feds. And even if one of them does, it doesn't prove anything about me," DeNea said, crossing his arms.

"Then if you have nothing to hide, why don't you help us? Someone murdered her. Someone who may be connected to some much uglier crimes," Scully said walking to his side of the table resting on it and crossing her arms as well.

"We have witnesses, friends of Miss Montclair who will testify not only that she was a prostitute but that you frequented her house. It doesn't really matter what's proven, just the hint of impropriety won't be good for your position as a potential partner in your company," Agent Sonder's pointed out. Behind the glass Mulder was impressed. Even though it was little more than a hunch, playing to the fact that Joel DeNea had enough of a business profile not to risk scandal, showed better instincts than he had ever seen in her before.

It appeared to work. The man slouched in his chair and took a moment to take a few deep breaths. "You want my best guess at what this is all about?" he asked the two women crowding in on him. "And this is no more than a guess. Linda was no dummy, well not when it came to money anyway." Joel continued choosing his words so as not to incriminate himself. "She knew what virgin ass was worth, and a minor child besides. Men pay a lot for illegal delicacies. I think she started a price war for that kid and accepted payments from more than just the highest bidder. Someone is collecting their debt."

Behind the glass Mulder's arm muscle spasmed with his desire to punch through the glass and snap the pathetic snake of a man's neck.

"You give us names and you give them now, you worthless son of a bitch," Scully yelled, leaning into his face. Sonders took a step back. She had never seen the stoic Agent Scully compromise her composure even a fraction of a millimeter.

"Look, if you have her address book, you know more than I do," Joel barked back at her. "So, if you don't have anything to charge me with, we're done here."

"Make sure you stay in the area," Sonders warned him. "In case we have any more questions."

Scully met Mulder, in the dark room, as the other agents filed out.

"What he said, Scully, I know he's right. Linda was trying to use Ally," Mulder told her. "What if she made more than empty promises? What if she actually delivered Ally to one of those men?" Saying the words Mulder felt like a hooked fish being yanked into the harsh dry atmosphere. He turned away from Scully. "Ally told me Linda introduced her to one of her clients. What if…"

"No Mulder," she interrupted him. He felt her small, cool hand through the fabric of his shirt, took a deep breath and looked at her again. "I've talked with her about sex, and her knowledge is strictly theoretical."

"What?"

"She notices everything…especially about us. She's curious about what's going on. I can't ignore her, when she asks me questions," Scully explained.

"What did you tell her?"

"Nothing explicit," Scully paused. Bridging the distance between Mulder and his daughter's burgeoning adolescent was not going to be easy. 'Who did I piss off to get this detail?' she wondered smiling.

"And you know from that…"

"Yes, she talked to me about the men Linda was with. None of them hurt her. She didn't like them though. She was old enough to know what was going on and it devalued her concept of sex," Scully paused. "You should be very proud of yourself Mulder. I can tell she is looking to you to see how men behave and how they should treat her. You are setting a very high standard for her future. That takes some fathers years to achieve."

"Thanks Scully," Mulder said, feeling worthy of his daughter for the first time. It was perhaps the best compliment she could bestow. He knew how very much she had adored her father, how close they had been. He realized that he wanted that relationship with Ally. One day to see an accomplished, remarkable young woman and bask in the knowledge that she loved him and that he had some hand in all that she had grown to be. "I can never admit this to her but I had decided not to have kids. I was so afraid of being like my parents, that my children would doubt that I loved them or that I even wanted them," he confessed.

"She knows. You're devotion to her is obvious and she adores you."

"I'm glad she chose to talk to you," Mulder told her as she pulled out her cell phone. "What are you doing?"

"I'm calling the Musketeers," she answered. Frohike, Langley, and Byers were alternately the Musketeers or the Stooges depending on who was asking the favor. "The man as good as made a threat against Ally and I want one of them to pick her up from school." Mulder had to admit he felt remiss that he had not thought of the potential first.

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Ally stumbled into the school administration office at two fifty, her book bag and coat tumbling over her arms.

"Ally, you know this man?" the secretary asked giving a nervous nod in the direction of a lanky blonde man wearing a tee shirt that said 'No More Fashion Victims'.

"It's Lord Manhammer," Ally said brightly, smiling, but not allaying the starched and pressed secretary's trepidation about handing Ally over to this man who looked more like a vagabond than an appropriate choice for childcare. "What are you doing here?"

"Scully called and told me to pick you up and take you back to the lair," Langley told her. He had not been given much more information.

"But I want to go home with Paige," Ally argued.

"Sorry you'll have to take that up with your Dad," Langley told her, trying to have the final word in the matter, but Ally just looked at him impassively. "I'll let you play your Sims game on my Mac."

"And download new objects?" Ally asked.

"Sure, whatever. Lets just go," Langley agreed, taking her book bag and helping her slip into her coat. Finally, he escorted her from the building.

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	12. Chapter 12

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Maggie opened the front door at eight thirty AM, wondering who could be knocking at this time in the morning. On her doorstep, she found the unlikely trio she jokingly referred to as the Spooky clan. It did not matter that Dana tried to keep her private life hidden, one of the blessings of motherhood was the ability to see beneath the surface of your child's behavior and know when things were changing. And, truth be told, this was a change she had expected for years.

"Um…hi Mom," Dana began, reminding Maggie of the sixteen year old girl returning home after curfew.

"Hello Dana," Maggie greeted them and hugged her daughter. She stepped inside so they could follow. Mulder looked almost as ill at ease as Dana and Ally stropped behind in a fine pout, her arms square across her chest. "What's going on? I didn't expect to see you until tomorrow night. Aren't you in your new house yet, Fox?"

"Yes ma'am," Mulder said.

"We got a call on our current case," Scully told her, leaving out that she was scheduled to autopsy a girl Ally's age in forty-five minutes. Why spoil everyone else's holiday?

"We uh…I needed…was hoping you could keep Ally tonight," Mulder added.

"It isn't fair! You guys work all the time!" Ally interrupted, glaring at her father. She had been so mild mannered and grateful when she had first come into his life, but in the last few weeks her demands and moods were increasingly capricious.

"Drop the attitude this minute young lady," Maggie ordered. "Matthew, Trent and Chris are here and Aunt Tara is making cookies. There is plenty for you to do and plenty of kids for you to play with. Dana and your father will be back first thing in the morning."

Ally dropped her arms and took her bag from her father and walked into the house. Mulder's eyes widened with respect for the maternal force in front of him. He looked questioningly at Scully, but she was accustomed to her mother's ability to take control of a situation.

"I'm happy to keep Ally," Maggie added, "but I just made a promise on your behalf and you will honor it. I don't care what happens. You will be here first thing in the morning and you will spend your holiday with your daughter," Maggie told them firmly.

They nodded and turned back to the car. "Did you tell her about us?" Mulder asked.

"No."

"Well, she seems to know."

"She's my mother, Mulder. She has a sense about these things," Scully told him. "No matter how unreadable I try to be. Not to mention I'm sure she is keeping an eleven year old spy on retainer."

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Scrubbed, suited up and hair pulled back, Scully walked into the cold mortuary lab. She forced her tempest of emotions into the deepest recesses of her consciousness, wondering at her inability to ever become accustomed to this work. She expected it to be difficult at first and trusted, as she had heard from other agents, that the heinous events her work required her to endure would get easier as time passed. They never had. If anything it got worse as case after case the world seemed a little more unsettling, a little bleaker.

As it was the night before Christmas Eve, Scully had not called in an assistant. She fought her initial desire to bolt from the dark, empty room as the heavy door thudded behind her. Instead she summoned the composed, professional character she played for the FBI, turned on the exam light and picked up her tape recorder.

"Agent Scully performing the autopsy on subject Delilah Summers, eleven year-old African-American female," Scully began with strategic detachment.

She looked at the adolescent's majestic features, a broad regal nose, a gently sloping forehead, and the highest most stately of cheekbones. In death, she looked far older than her eleven years, like the consort of a crown prince not the victim of a child molester, extinguished in one breath of a capricious madman.

"As with the previous two victims, the subject was raped with a serrated double edged knife. Victim appears to have bled to death due to internal trauma," Scully spoke into her recorder, her voice not betraying her unsteady nerves. "Contusions around both wrists and ankles reveal that the victim was bound. As expected in an attack of this nature, there is tearing of the vaginal fourchette in the three and six o'clock position, massive internal abrasions and an eight-inch hemorrhagic laceration extending from the introitus along the vaginal wall to the cervix. I will continue with a Y incision."

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They snuck quietly into Maggie's house. Scully glanced around accessing that everyone was asleep as they stepped into the darkened living room.

"How are you holding up?" Mulder asked, now that they were well away from the prying eyes of fellow agents, safe and secluded in a private residence. He was protective of Scully even as he admired her abilities and her strength. He hoped she understood that. Scully said nothing for a moment. "Do you still think about her?"

The deaths of first her father and then Emily at this season coupled to make Christmas a volatile emotional cocktail for Scully. "Yes," she admitted. "But it's not like before. It's not like with Dara Kernoff and her sisters. I'm fine." Scully changed the subject effectively shutting him out of her private thoughts. "What did you find out?"

"It's not good," Mulder said. Neither made a move to turn on the lights. Mulder sat on the straight backed Victorian couch. "The girl, Delilah Summers, she and Ally went to the same school last year in Baltimore. He is flaunting his ability, showing us how close he can get to…"

"…to Ally," Scully finished for him.

Scully sensed his affirmative nod, even in the dark. "They haven't found a card yet but I am sure it will be The Queen of Spades," he told her.

"Why?"

"It's incredibly racist…have you ever heard the expression 'black as the Ace of Spades'? It's the only reason I can think of…other than," Mulder could not continue, could not get his mind around the horrifying fact his profiler brain broadcast in hallucinogenic technicolor.

"Ally is the Queen of Hearts. She's next," Scully finished banally. "Who else fits the profile so perfectly?" Scully said a tinge of panic in her voice. "I have to see her."

Mulder stood and put his arm around her, he could feel her trembling. "Do you think she's in your room or the guest room?"

"She'd pick my room, bless her obnoxious little heart," Scully answered smiling.

Mulder and Scully tipped toed up the stairs and opened her bedroom door as softly as possible, both experiencing a moment of foreboding, afraid that they would find the bed unmade and empty. But when the door slid away there was Ally sleeping peacefully, her lovely little face bathed in silver moonlight. Mulder focused intently on her breathing and in a few seconds noticed that the blanket was moving beneath her arms. He looked at the window to see that it was locked.

Impulsively, Scully started for the bed. After the autopsy on a child Ally's age she wanted to feel Ally warm and alive in her arms. Mulder stopped her.

"It's ok. She's in a secure home, in a second story bedroom with the window locked," Mulder analyzed the situation.

"And after everything we've seen, how can you think that is enough?" Scully asked.

Mulder tried to suppress his laugh so as not to wake Ally. "Who says paranoia isn't contagious?" he teased her.

"I'm serious Mulder," Scully told him turning to look him in the eyes at close range. "If anything happened to her…" she looked off to the left slightly, unable to maintain eye contact with such intensity. "I love her. We have seen people capable of getting into locked rooms."

"Yes, but not like this. This case shows no signs of anything paranormal. This is a run of the mill psychopath. I recognize the danger. He is doing everything he can to tell us he is after her, but he is not supernatural. Whoever this madman is, he is a mundane human being. She'll be safe tonight," Mulder explained. "Come on Scully, she has you and me, and we have the resources of the entire Violent Crimes Division of the FBI. I will get a surveillance detail on her first thing in the morning."

Scully nodded and stepped into his arms as she closed the door. "I'm afraid Mulder," she whispered closely to his ear. "Take me away."

Inside Mulder rejoiced. For years he had wanted her openly to seek out his comfort. He wrapped his arms around her and navigated them to the bathroom. Scully was so small, negotiating her weight was no challenge. He turned on the shower, adjusted the heat to the temperature she preferred-a little too hot for him- and returned his attention to her. "You step in and take off the last twelve hours. I'll get us something to eat. I'm sure your mom has the fridge fully stocked." It was so easy to forget creature comforts like eating when in the middle of a case.

She sighed content that she had such a man taking care of her, someone to take over and make the world disappear. "Thanks," she whispered. Mulder stood behind her and she leaned against him. "I'm glad I was partnered with Spooky Mulder."

"Curtsey of the bureau's dating service," he teased. "I'll meet you in the guest room." She began unbuttoning her shirt. "I promise I'll make you forget."

"And I'll return the favor," she smiled at him wickedly and leaned in to kiss his lips.

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	13. Chapter 13

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"Morning Mom," Bill greeted his mother who was preparing a traditional Scully family breakfast. Navy commander though he may be, Bill found the sight of his mother in the kitchen comforting.

"Morning Billy," Maggie said, presenting her cheek to him.

"Did Dana get in last night?" he asked. Maggie nodded her head to the window. Try as he might, Bill did not like Mulder in his sister's life. He knew Dana understood that it came from the best place within him, his desire for her safety and happiness, yet it typically manifested itself in being a jerk to her partner.

Bill looked out onto the backyard. The trio created an enchanting tableau: that man, his sister and Ally. They appeared Norman Rockwell normal playing on an old tire swing in the early morning sun. Only someone acquainted with the strange events of the X Files, who had suffered because of them, could suspect the danger synonymous with this man. Although, he did have to admit that Dana seemed happy in this fools paradise. "I suppose there's no use trying to talk sense into her now that his kid has arrived on the scene."

"Don't start Billy. I'm very fond of 'that kid'."

"I know. You give everyone the benefit of the doubt. It is one of your most endearing faults," Bill said. He would not specifically name his objections to Fox Mulder, but they both knew the Bill blamed Mulder for Melissa's death just as if he had pulled the trigger.

"Well thank you very much," Maggie replied, dripping with sarcasm. "Look Billy you are to do nothing to upset our time together. We get little enough of it as it is. Is that clear?" she asked forcing the naval commander to comply.

"Yes, of course Mom, I want that too."

"I think Dana has done the right thing. She and Ally need each other and like it or not, Fox has been the only one for her for years. You know, this could be the start of something completely new for them," Maggie smiled to herself.

"I know for all of her intelligence Dana will follow her heart."

Maggie continued to smile, unperturbed. "Isn't that the definition of love?" she asked.

"It shouldn't be." Bill stared out the window again. He watched his sister hop onto the swing. Her added weight created an axis and the tire began to spin in its arch. Ally's hair flew out behind her, amber in the winter sunlight.

He reevaluated the situation. Perhaps his mother was right. Perhaps this child, who had ensnared his sister, would prove her salvation. Mulder was not void of every proper feeling. He did seem to love his daughter. He had purchased a home, presumably with the intention of settling down. Could getting out of the FBI be far behind? Regarding Ally in a prudential light, perhaps she was not her father's ace in the hole but rather his own trump card.

The trio made a noisy entrance through the back door, Ally riding blissfully on her father's back.

"Morning," Bill greeted them.

"Morning Billy," Dana said and kissed his cheek. Mulder smiled wanly as he and Ally removed their coats.

"Go get our stuff Dad," Ally nagged.

"You're sure you want to spend Christmas here? And that we're invited?" Mulder asked.

"Stop Fox, you know you are always invited," Maggie told him.

"Go by my place too," Scully requested.

"Why? You already have everything you need," Mulder pointed out.

"I need everyone's presents. They are in the hall closet and there are a few in the trunk of my car," Scully answered.

"I told you he would stay if I asked him," Ally said to Maggie. "And you'll never guess…they are _so _together."

"So it would seem," Maggie beamed. "But perhaps if we wish to discuss Dana and Fox we should wait until they are not in the room."

"And what makes you think Ally knows anything," Scully countered, taking the teasing good naturedly but very much wishing to put an end to it. She did not wish to quantify her relationship with Mulder standing n her mother's kitchen.

Further conversation was prevented as Matthew burst into the room. "Allweee!!" he called to her running to embrace her. "Is Aunt Dana your mom?" he asked unaware of the landmine he had trodden on. Apparently he had overheard enough of the conversation.

"Yes," Ally replied with immediate certainty.

"Funny you'd think I would remember something like that," Scully said keeping her tone casual. She did not want to upset Ally nor did she wish to define their relationship.

"You made me eat my snow peas the last time we had Chinese food. That means I get to say you're my mom if I want," Ally explained her adolescent system of authority and obligation.

Scully chuckled softly. She directed her attention to her mother. "And all this time you told me it was a painful matter of labor and delivery," Scully teased her.

"I had to do it the hard way. You never ate your vegetables when I told you to," Maggie answered her.

"Really?!" Ally giggled and glared at Scully.

"Dana was the worse one for eating junk food," Maggie said, speaking from her mother's encyclopedia of unhelpful facts about her children.

"I guess I should get going," Mulder said grabbing his coat once again.

"Look Fox," Bill began, under the misguided impression that calling him by his first name would create a sense of familiarity, "before you take off…I know we have gotten off to a somewhat shaky start….."

Mulder bit his tongue, trying not to say 'that is a massive understatement.' He had promised Scully not to say anything argumentative, so he waited for Bill to continue digging his own grave.

"I am sorry…for the way things began between us. We never really had a chance to get acquainted," Bill began. "It seems we have always been facing a crisis when we are together, first when Dana was ill, and then the Christmas she came out to California wasn't much better."

"What happened when she went to California?" Ally asked. Mulder pulled her to him and tried to pretend she hadn't spoken. Bill and Maggie looked at Dana to see if she would answer.

"It's ok, Mulder." Looking at Ally, Dana continued "that was the Christmas Emily died."

"Your little girl?" Ally asked . "Do I remind you of her?"

"Not at all," Scully chuckled. "She was half your age and very shy. I hardly got to know her at all."

"I don't understand. It isn't fair that your daughter would be taken and I would get a mother like Linda," Ally told her.

"You can't think of things that way Ally. You have to accept your miracles as you find them," Scully said wrapping one arm around the girl. Ally smiled broadly. Mulder watched, shocked that Scully could talk about Emily so effortlessly and so painlessly.

He remembered the deep depression discovering her daughter had sent her spiraling down. He had wanted to help, wanted her to turn to him and he tried not to feel rejected as she kept him at a distance, saying very little of the hurt she attempted to cauterize alone and silently. Who would have thought that his funny, awkward child would be the balm to heal that scar?

"I'm glad you guys are here," Bill continued. "I know better than to try something as archaic as giving you permission to see my sister. Mainly because I'm pretty sure she has a gun concealed somewhere. Look Fox…welcome to the family. I'd like us to try and be friends."

"Thanks Bill," Mulder said cautiously. He knew better than to believe that after years of callousness Bill Scully Jr. was suddenly overcome with the warmth of human kindness. "I very much want Ally to have an extended family. My mom made it pretty clear it wasn't going to be with her." 'Oh and just ignore the unmarked car parked twenty yards from the front door,' he thought. He had called in a servailence team first thing as he had promised Scully the night before.

"I agree. I'm always promising Tara I'll spend more time with the family for Mattie's sake. You can't get back time spent with your kids," Bill said hoping that the fatherhood wheel was spinning in Mulder's head. "I hope this means we will all be spending more time together."

"Yeah, me too," Mulder said evenly and reached in his pocket for the keys.

Bill sat at the kitchen table and opened the newspaper. Mulder planted a perfunctory kiss on Scully's forehead.

"You can kiss her on the lips if you want," Ally teased her dad.

"No, actually if my lips come within six inches of Scully's, Uncle Billy will unleash an army of bees carrying a deadly virus," Mulder said, although only he and Scully understood. She chuckled, while Bill, Ally and Maggie felt excluded from their private joke.

Bill handed the primary section of the paper to his sister and they sat across the kitchen table from each other.

"You should wait for breakfast Fox" Maggie said stirring a large bowl of batter. "Ally, if you and Mattie want to help me with the pancakes you need to go wash up."

Ally started for the bathroom but the headline on Bill's paper caught her attention. "That's Ms Kasha!" She announced, recognizing the robust African-American female in the photo. "What's she doing in the paper?" Ally asked looking at the grainy black and white photo on the front of the paper.

"What?" Scully asked turning the paper to look at the picture.

"You know her?" Mulder asked snapping his head in her direction.

"Yeah she's De's mother. My best friend. I was at their house like all the time," Ally said. Something in the way Scully looked at her made Ally suspicious.

"It's nothing Ally," Scully said.

"Delilah, that was your friend's name?" Mulder asked.

"Yes. Why? What's going on?"

"Ally, Delilah your friend was…" Scully stumbled avoiding the word murdered. She did not want to discuss the details of the case. "Delilah died last night."

"No," Ally stated stubbornly.

"Yes sweetheart, I'm sorry but it's true. That's why her mother is in the paper," Mulder confirmed.

"NO!" Ally yelled. "She's just a kid! She's my friend! She isn't dead! She's at home with Ms Kasha. They're getting ready for Christmas!" In a storm of stomps and slams Ally ran upstairs and into Scully's room.

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	14. Chapter 14

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"NO! I don't want them!" Ally shouted and knocked the offered medication from Scully's hand. The pills scattered and rolled across the hardwood floor of Mulder's new home. Scully stared wide-eyed at the child. Ally was typically so compliant.

"Karen prescribed those for you," Scully said in exasperation. She picked up the bottle to get another dose.

"I don't care! I won't take them!" Ally continued yelling, her body language implacable.

"They will help you feel better," Scully said, ushering Ally into a chair and sitting beside her at the kitchen table.

"I'm fine," Ally replied.

It occurred to Scully with sudden intensity that she did not like being on the receiving end of that infamous line. She had never realized how ineffectual Mulder must feel when she brushed him off with that answer. He must have been so worried when she had been ill, concerned about her weight loss and sleeping habits. And she in return had behaved almost as belligerently as Ally was now. She had clung to her need for privacy and her own counsel and ignored how frightened he must have been not knowing how her cancer was progressing or what therapies were being tried.

"Maybe I'm not fine. But I will be." Ally spoke, her tone softened. "When someone you love, someone you say was your best friend dies, you're suppose to feel bad." Ally demonstrated impressive maturity and self-awareness, even if on the heels of a tantrum. "I don't want to feel better yet. I should be sad."

Mulder and Scully had taken her to the memorial service four days ago. As they entered the church, Ally ran head long into Kasha Summer's arms, sobbing inconsolably. Mulder and Scully felt out of place watching the woman whom they did not know comfort Ally. They had never thought about the life Ally had before them. She had loved people, laughed with them, made a place in their hearts, and as she did that day, cried with them.

Scully stood. "Okay, you don't have to feel better. You don't have to take your medicine. It's okay to miss your friend but you can't ruin your health. Eat something even if you only take a few bites." Scully stood and rubbed a gentle circle across Ally's back.

"Okay, I'll have some leftovers," Ally conceded and Scully retrieved some chicken pasta from the refrigerator. She placed a small portion in the microwave.

"Will you guys be okay without me tonight?" Scully asked. Staying over had become all but routine, however with the personal investment of this case and the weeks that were dragging by, getting ready for work could be tense. And as Scully knew, that tension could not be concealed from Ally.

"Yes, we'll be fine," Ally answered through a forced calm. Scully placed the plate in front of her.

Scully released a breath between a sigh and a chuckle. How many times had her mother wished for her to have a child as stubborn and independent as she had been? "Get some rest. Things will be better tomorrow," she assured Ally kissing her on the forehead before walking to the door.

Ally stared at the plate of leftovers but could not muster the interest to begin eating. She went through the den and to her father's study.

"You finish your homework?" he asked looking up at her.

"Yeah," Ally answered. Mulder pushed away from his desk and opened his arms. Ally needed no further encouragement to move into his lap.

"Scully left?"

"Yeah. Dad, are you guys fighting about me?"

"No, we aren't fighting at all. Why do you think that?" Mulder asked.

"I don't know it just doesn't seem right."

"We're working on a difficult case and it is dragging on much longer than we're used to. Our work takes a lot out of us. That's all," Mulder explained.

"Yes, but this case is about me. That's why you took me out of the car pool."

"Scully and I are worried. We are concerned for your safety, but we love each other. In fact, I want to talk to you about her," Mulder said broaching a different subject. "What would you think if I asked Scully to move in with us?"

"That would be really cool," Ally said her old smile returning. "Dad…" she paused. Her recent experience with her best friend's mortality had her mind preoccupied with life and its unpredictability. "What happens to me if you died?"

"Hey, I'm not going anywhere," Mulder said and ran his hand through her soft brown hair tucking a long strand behind her ear.

"You don't know that. Your job is dangerous. And if anything happens to you where will I go?" Ally demanded an answer. Usually her earnest demeanor amused Mulder but not this time.

"Well, as it stands, my mother might claim custody as a biological relative. Otherwise you would probably go into foster care," Mulder told her the truth.

"No, that isn't what I want. I want Dana to adopt me," Ally expressed her wish in a straightforward, clear-cut manner.

"I agree," Mulder said. He turned her to him so that her head rested against his shoulder. "That would be best for both of you." Mulder had not forgotten how Ally had given Scully the internal peace to remember Emily. "But it isn't a simple matter," Mulder told her turning her so that their foreheads were touching. "Scully has to agree." Mulder wanted to have a private conversation with Scully, before talking to Ally, just in case she said no.

"Let's ask her on my birthday!" Ally said excited.

"Ally you should really think about this. I know you are fond of Scully but this means having her here all the time. No more hiding Fruit Loops in the Raisin Bran box. And I know you don't like it when she makes you eat mushrooms on your pizza."

"Come on Dad, I know this is more important than that," Ally cut him off. "I want us to be a family."

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Mulder grabbed the bag of decorations from the closet. Scully met him in the den with tape.

"Did you ever imagine we'd be doing anything so normal? You have a house, and it isn't a vortex into the twilight zone or haunted by poltergeists," Scully said making him laugh. "I have to admit, I have trouble getting my head around it."

"Stranger than that we have a daughter, who isn't possessed by demons or extra-terrestrial DNA," Mulder said wondering if he'd gone too far. It seemed obvious to him that Scully had taken on the position of alpha female in Ally's life but whether she were ready to see that for herself, was another matter. Scully let the moment pass, but her expression gave him reservations as to the evening he and Ally had planned. "Hey, do you think your mom could pick up the dog?" Mulder changed the subject, as he pulled a long streamer from the bag. He had finally caved and decided to give Ally a small shaggy golden retriever puppy for her birthday.

"No, I don't. You already asked her to pick the girls up from school," Scully answered, picking up the other end of the streamer.

"Then could you get the dog?" Mulder used that melancholy boyish face to no avail.

"No, I couldn't. I'm getting the cake and ice cream and apparently chaperoning the slumber party," Scully pointed out unaware that there was no slumber party. It was Mulder's way of ensuring that Scully would plan on staying the night, giving him the right moment to ask her. 'Ask her what?' Mulder thought. On one hand their romantic attachment was still new. Scully was also a very independent woman much more likely to agree to living together than anything more. But then she was a good Catholic girl. Perhaps there was some small part of her that quietly longed for marriage and tradition, well as traditional as anything with Fox Mulder could be. He pictured the ring he had locked in his bedside stand three days ago, wondering if he would have the nerve to open that drawer. "It's your present to her. Get it yourself." Scully taped the paper ribbon in place.

"Come on, Scully. It could be from both of us," Mulder said grabbing a happy birthday banner and standing on a chair.

"No thank you. I already got her something and it's wrapped and waiting upstairs in my closet," Scully spoke opening pink and purple paper plates and plastic forks. "I mean your closet," she corrected.

"It's your closet," Mulder said stepping off the chair. "What did you end up getting her?"

"A first edition of _A Wrinkle in Time," _she told him.

"Oh yeah," Mulder yawned. "She'll love that." He covered his mouth with a large hand.

"It's her favorite book."

"Yes and she's read it. She already owns a copy. She's turning twelve not getting a PhD in literature. You think she's gonna care that it's a first edition?" Mulder said reasoning that he knew his daughter better.

"Yes, I do. I predict squealing, jumping up and down and a big bear hug," Scully answered.

"Yeah she'll react the same way to my present."

"But she will hug the dog not you."

The doorbell rang and Mulder went to greet Forhike. Ally thundered down the stairs. "I want to ride in the car pool," she whined.

"As long as I'm on this case you will be chaperoned by someone I trust at all times," Mulder said, hating how authoritative he came across. The case continued to stretch on and he knew as well as anyone many cases went opened and unsolved for years, even decades. "Thanks for driving around my little brat, Frohike."

"No problem. Anything for the mini babe," Frohike said and Ally smiled.

"Never refer to my daughter as a babe again," Mulder warned his friend.

"Hey, serves you right for snatching the lovely Agent Scully away from me," Frohike told him. Ally started for the den.

"Where you going?" Mulder asked. Trying to plan two surprises, keeping Ally in the dark about her party and Scully in the dark about his intentions had not been easy.

"To get my book bag."

"Here you go," Scully said intercepting Ally and walking back to the front door.

"Can we watch _Dirty Dancing _tonight?"

"We'll see," Scully answered as she helped Ally put her bag on.

"Come on it's my birthday," Ally said and they both laughed. Ally kissed Scully firmly on the lips, a privilege that had taken Mulder years to achieve yet his irreverent daughter accomplished it in a few months.

"See ya later Allygator," Scully said.

"Bye Dad," Ally quickly kissed him good-bye.

"Let's roll," Frohike said ushering her through the door.

"Thanks Frohike," Scully smiled at him. "We'll see you at the party tonight?"

"I wouldn't miss the social event of the season," he confirmed and followed Ally out to the car.

"Allygator?" Mulder questioned. He would never have believed that one goofy little girl could charm his skeptical partner into such silly and childish displays of affection. "When did you become so nauseatingly adorable?"

"Shut up Mulder," she replied, shaking her head. "Is everything ready?"

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	15. Chapter 15

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Jodi stepped out of her third hand hatchback and walked back to the trunk, opened it and retrieved a black bag almost larger than she was. The edge of the bag dug painfully into her thigh. She leaned under the weight and limped in the direction of the bright green double doors. She noticed two uniformed men standing at the entrance.

"Excuse me ma'am, but what is your business here?" An officer posted in front of the door asked.

"I was hired to perform for the kids. I do magic shows," she explained. The other officer radioed ahead.

"May I escort you to the front office?" the first man, generically tan and blond, asked.

"It isn't necessary," Jodi answered, hoisting the thick strap further up her shoulder.

"Actually it is," the second officer now done with the radio, told her. Jodi complied and walked behind the robust man. He did not offer to carry her bag and she limped along behind him. Once in the front office, the secretary greeted her before ushering her into the head administrator's study.

"Hello Miss Johnson," Father McCue stood and greeted the thin woman. He stood behind his desk. She took his extended hand.

"Professionally I'm known as the March Hair," she said.

"Yes. I hope the children find your act entertaining. We tell the parents that these exhibitions we bring in are educational but I think they are mainly an excuse for the teachers to catch up on grading and lesson plans."

"I'm sure they can use any time they can get."

"I am sure," Father McCue agreed. He opened the top drawer of his large wooden desk and retrieved a check. "I trust the payment is in order."

"Yes, as we agreed," Jodie said as she checked the amount. She normally didn't accept checks but then she normally performed for large groups of intoxicated men not Catholic school children.

"Is there anything else you need?"

"No, just show me where to set up."

"I'll have Sister Luke show you to the auditorium and the teachers lounge."

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Mulder seethed, resentful of every second that ticked away on the oversized clock behind AD Colton's big fat head. He took a moment to wish for telekinetic powers to bring the heavy object down on the smug SOB.

He looked at Scully, feigning polite interest across the conference table. He knew despite the pretence she was just as mind numbingly bored. Although working with his often brought out the firey side of her she enjoyed the challenge and frank dialogue. With all eyes watching them, they could hardly brainstorm in the outrageous manner that was their custom.

She kept gently chewing on her bottom lip, which was not helping his concentration. He glanced around to see if any of the other agents were looking at her. Now that they were together personally, he expected to feel a degree of jealousy, but he didn't. In fact he got a strange feeling of pride when he noticed some strapping young agent ogling her. Even Colton noticed her, no matter how Scully tried to pretend otherwise. Mulder followed the eyes of the men who gazed longingly at her, always interested to see which feature of her anatomy drew their attention. Contentedly he thought to himself, 'in a few hours I have an all access pass. Would this meeting never end!'

Superficially, Scully dealt with the changes in their relationship exactly as Mulder had expected. At work, she was the very same Special Agent, ignoring his goofy flirtation, arguing with him, and playing by the book. He noticed, however, that she had become a meticulous clock-watcher. Before, it was not unusual for them to work until well past six several nights a week, but now even a little past five thirty and she would look over at the clock and then cast her ravenous eyes on him and say, 'Come on Mulder, let's call it a day.'

He leaned back in his chair trying not to think about the nubile and sensitive Dana Scully just a few meters away from him, running her tongue across her full upper lip. He forced his mind to go blank before a situation arouse worthy of a mention in his personal file.

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Ally sat on the floor with her classmates, watching a woman wearing a top hat with white rabbit ears hot glued to the side. She found the show unimpressive. Even though she did not know how the March Hare was performing her magic she was certain there were completely ordinary explanation for her tricks.

When the woman asked for a volunteer, Ally had no intention of raising her hand, however her lack of enthusiasm only served to make her conspicuous. The magician called on her and asked her to come up on the stage. Ally almost refused but decided against causing a scene and made her way through the auditorium.

"And what is your name?" the performer asked.

"Ally."

"Well Ally, this is for you," the March Hare said handing her a pink construction paper heart. Ally took it. "Now I want you to rip it up," Jodi instructed and Ally did as asked. "Here," Jodi said holding a glass of water, "put the paper in the glass." Ally did.

Once the paper was saturated in the water Jodi drained the glass collected the pink pulp in her hand and wrung out the faded wad. She handed the mess back to Ally. "Now very carefully unfold it," she told Ally.

It took a few seconds but Ally unfolded the intact paper heart scared with faint lines from where she had torn it. The students clapped and Ally returned to her classmates with the damp paper heart crumpled in her hand.

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Shannon, the effervescent mail clerk, made her way around the conference table to Agent Mulder, trying to intercept him on his way to Scully. Shannon had heard the rumors about the two but that had been years ago, and as Agent Scully had never turned up pregnant, nor had they married she assumed that they were professional partners well entrenched in the 'good friend zone'.

"I suppose a quickie is out of the question," Mulder teased Scully and was rewarded with a blush that colored the bridge of her nose. He flashed a smile which she tried to pretend did not inspire less than professional thoughts.

"Here Agent Mulder," the buxom mail clerk smiled prettily enough for Scully to notice as she handed out his mail.

"Thanks," Mulder replied, taking the three white legal sized envelopes. Scully stepped in closer to Mulder. Shannon moved on unaware of the bullets Scully stared through the back of her head. Mulder began opening the first envelope. "You know what kind of ice cream to get for tonight?" he asked.

"Chunky Monkey."

"No, she likes Rocky Road," Mulder told her.

"No. She likes frozen cookie dough. The Chunky Monkey is for you," Scully said, certain she had won this round of 'who knows Ally best'.

"You're going to let her eat raw cookie dough?"

"It's her birthday. Despite what you think I'm not a complete curmudgeon. One time a year I think she can have cookie dough."

Mulder glanced over the letter in his hand. It was a request from accounting for an expense report. He put it at the bottom of the stack. He slid his thumb under the flap of the next envelope and tore it open. Before he could see its contents his fingertip made contact with a thick rounded corner. His thumb closed over a smooth laminated surface. The engram stimulated the electrical impulse though his synapse and the message raced to his brain. He dropped the papers.

"He has her. He has Ally!" Mulder yelled in the middle of the conference room. All attention turned to him.

"What's going on?" Scully demanded. Personally, she was accustomed to his unorthodox behavior but it annoyed her when he flaunted it in front of the entire VC Division.

He wasted no time explaining. Mulder flew through the door in a record six paces, leaving all eyes on Scully. She picked up the envelopes that had fallen on the floor inside the one Mulder had opened was the Queen of Hearts casting her painted, sinister smile at the ceiling. Each of the victim's families had been sent a Queen of a different suit.

Scully picked up the card and ran after him at a panic. On the back of the card in sloppy toddler script someone had printed the address of St. John's church. Scully followed Mulder, running down the hallway to catch up.

"He has Ally. That bastard has her," Mulder growled not turning to look at her. Scully continued matching his pace. He stopped abruptly. "No, you stay here." He looked at her for an instant. "Go back in there and get us some back up. Convince them. I'll call you when I find her."

"Mulder she's at school. There is a team of agents staking out the area. If anything happens they will contact us immediately," Scully reminded him as her cell phone rang. "Agent Scully."

"Dana they can't find her," Maggie Scully's desperate voice echoed through the connection. "I'm at the school and they can't find her."

Scully fought the reflex to drop to her knees. In every case, by the time the card had been delivered it had been too late. She pulled the phone away from her ear. "It's the church. He's taken her to the church," she said handing Mulder the card. They turned sharply away from one another. She rushed back into the conference room and he ran to his car.

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Engram—A presumed encoding in neural tissue that provides a physical basis for the persistence of memory


	16. Chapter 16

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The breaks squealed, the car jerked to a halt. Mulder shot out of the door almost before the vehicle stopped. Two officers stood outside the school, their cover no longer necessary.

"Agent Mulder…" one of the officers assigned to the aborted stake out acknowledged him. "We have locked down the school. No one has gone in or out in the last twenty minutes. Two buses left before the lock down but the missing girl is on neither of them." The man, officer Rosford, knew that _the missing girl _was Mulder's daughter. He wondered that AD Colton had allowed him anywhere near the school.

"Who has been watching the church?" Mulder asked. That was the address written on the playing card.

"The church?" the other agent asked as he approached. Mulder motioned to the large gothic building looming across the street from the school. "But they couldn't be in the church. No one has left the school."

"It didn't occur to you that there might be an underground communication between St. John's church and St. John's school?" Mulder tossed the question over his shoulder as he started for the building.

"Agent Mulder, going in that church is the last thing you should do," Rosford tried to stop him.

Mulder turned sharply. "You just make sure that the emergency vehicles don't sound any sirens and scare this son-of-a-bitch. Can you do that?" Mulder spat as he stormed off.

"Agent Mulder!" they called to his back.

Mulder shoved the heavy wooden doors open as thought they were little more than papier-mâché. "Special Agent Mulder," he announced, gun in hand. He continued down the wide isle. "Let her go." He tried to sound composed even as his voice cracked.

A faint scuffle echoed from the choir loft. Ally stumbled into the far end of the nave, her eyes wide, her complexion ashen, yet her expression relaxed when she saw her father. Even from his moderate distance, Mulder saw the small heart shaped wound cut into her school jumper.

"Put down your weapon," the female voice pinning Ally's arms behind her spoke. Mulder dropped his gun as though it had burst into flame, forgetting years of FBI training, unable to do anything as the life of his daughter rested in the hands of this unpredictable killer.

"Let her go," Mulder said again. The woman moved from behind Ally but still held the girl tightly.

"After all the work I've put into this," Jodi said placing her head close to Ally's face. "It took me such a long time to find your weakness Agent Mulder, at first I though it was going to be your partner but I got lucky. What are the odds that you would have a child you knew nothing about? And Linda was much easier to dispose of than that red headed superwoman you work with. I can't believe you guys never figured out that I killed Linda. However that was nothing, the real trick came in convincing DCF that you might be this brat's father. I didn't know for sure. Funny how things work out when fate lends a hand."

Ally broke free. "DAD!" She reached for him, with a claw like hand, and he stumbled closer but he was too far away and Jodi pulled Ally back shoving her into a beam of light cast by a stained glass window, her blood drained face reflecting the kaleidoscope of colors.

"John Roche was my father!" the deranged woman shouted. She took out a knife and placed it at the base of Ally's neck. "So tell me Agent Mulder, what's it's like to see the person you most love in pain?"

The knife dimpled the skin at the base of Ally's throat. She whimpered.

"STOP!" Mulder begged falling to his knees. "I never knew…I never knew John had a daughter."

"Seems to me, for a man who takes people's lives, there's a lot you don't know."

"He would have killed that little girl!" Mulder tried to defend.

"He was all I had in the world!" Jodi pointed the tip of the knife directly into the center of Ally's chest.

"Let her go! I shot John! You can stab me, shoot me with my own gun. Just let her go," Mulder shouted in desperation as he watched the silver blade slice through the air.

Jodi thrust the knife deep into Ally's yielding flesh, eliciting one strong, healthy scream and then a deafening silence. Mulder willed for her to scream again, anything other than the atrocious silence that followed. Jodi threw her from the choir loft and Ally tumbled down the steps like a broken doll. She landed with a resounding thud at the base of the alter.

Mulder ran to her and falling to his knees he gathered her small shattered body in his arms. Her eye, still open, blinked heavily. "Ally," he whispered hoarsely. "Hold on." Her pupils dilated, too listless to restrict the light entering her retina. He pulled her tightly against him as though his strength could repair her. "Help well be here soon."

But even in her light-headed state, Ally knew the truth. She brushed her palm against his cheek, the small gesture taking all the effort she had. Her mouth moved feebly but there was no sound. Mulder saw her lips gather in an almost smile and believed she was trying to whisper a voiceless 'I love you'. Her eyes closed. Her head lulled back against his shoulder.

"NO!...don't. You stay with me Ally," Mulder pleaded gently shaking her body. "You are…the very best of me, the best thing I have in this world," he said against her deaf ear as images of his live and energetic daughter played over in his head. Ally, tentative and adorable, make a fish face in front of his tank. Ally, defiant and beautiful, raging at his mother. Ally, vulnerable and perfect, sleeping in his arms. Ally, tortured, and empty, dieing on a filthy chapel floor. He felt her muscles slowly relaxing against him as her life ebbed away.

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	17. Chapter 17

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"There is no way in hell you are doing this autopsy! Are you insane?" Tom shouted, stunned that even Agent Scully had the nerve to make such a request. "You're her father's partner."

"Please Tom, I want to do this," Scully insisted.

"Your personal involvement would taint the evidence. It would be thrown out of court before the DA even opened his mouth. We have Jodi Roche in custody. We want a conviction," Tom pointed out the legal facts.

"Then have another coroner present to corroborate the evidence. Tom Please. It's the last think I'll ever do for her," Scully managed a strangled whisper.

"Dana go home, get some rest, get drunk, do something but don't go into that lab," Tom advised. "You don't want to see her like that. Remember her alive and happy." He stepped closer to her as the conversation changed from professional to personal.

"It can't possibly be worst than what I imagine," Scully spoke, keeping her eyes on the floor.

"I'm sending in a coroner to assist and corroborate. Don't you dare set one toe in that lab without him," Tom ordered even as he complied with her request.

"Thank you."

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"Special Agent Dana Scully performing the autopsy on subject…" she faltered taking an initial look at the body. She had almost no recognition of the empty shell on the exam table.

"Alison Mulder," the coroner on duty said, forcing Scully to continue.

"Superficial examination reveals cause of death to be massive blood loss due to a single stab wound running the entire length of the sternum. Knife appears to have lacerated the left ventricle artery." The stab wound did not chip away at Scully's resolve. She had expected it, prepared for it. It was the Sewer Sludge Green nail polish.

"There is a small scrape below the left knee," the assisting coroner observed.

"It's irrelevant to this examination. She got that roller blading in my mother's driveway," Scully said. She remembered how Ally's nose wrinkled when she had dabbed peroxide on the scrape.

She continued looking over the body and saw the single drop of blood, which had trailed from Ally's inner thy almost to her knee. The last support in her poised façade crumbled. She could not breathe. Her composure buckled and she ran to the exit, and fell into the hall.

"Agent Scully?" Tom called helping her up. He had deliberately stationed himself at the door. "I didn't think you'd make it." She managed to nod, too tired and too numb to care about his opinion.

"It's okay," Scully slowly caught her breath. "I'm going…" Now that there was no more work to do there was no way to avoid a reality without Ally. Scully felt superheated tears fall, not in drops or silent streams but in large painful sobs that shook her body.

It's okay Dana," Tom said putting his arm around her. "I'll take you home." She was too weak to object as Tom led her to his car. She walked through the parking lot like a zombie and complied mutely as Tom guided her into the car and fastened her seatbelt.

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Her blue hoodie hovered above sized two sneakers, taunting him as he opened the door. Mulder ripped the garment from the wall tearing out the hook. He threw the sweater to the ground. He headed for the kitchen, ignoring the milk stained cereal bowl in the sink. He opened the pantry. On the back of the top shelf he found the bottle of vodka. He unscrewed the cap and poured its contents down his throat, craving the promised oblivion.

He walked back to the den hoping to pass out on his old leather couch, but when he flipped on the lights happy primary birthday colors punched him straight in the gut. He overturned the neatly stacked table, presents tumbled on the floor. He ripped down the garish, mocking banner he had hung that morning. Mulder took another drink straight from the bottle, welcoming its warmth.

He continued walking through the house. Her schoolbook on the coffee table, her picture on the entertainment center. He did not even pause just lumbered upstairs. He found baby blue ribbons scattered in the bathroom and _To Kill A Mocking Bird _open on her bedside table. He closed the blind and pulled the thick, dark shutters over the window. He needed to block out the light, block out everything that had happened since that day in the DCF office, when she had entered his life, lost and alone and clutching a tattered duffel bag. Mulder took another drink, pleased as the sharp, unforgiving edges of his world blurred.

Ten years with a prostitute and Ally was feisty and alive, ten moths with her FBI Agent father and she was gone. He drank again. The room turned under him and he folded himself into her twin day bed.

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"Take these," Tom instructed handing her the percocet he had found in an expired prescription bottle in her medicine cabinet.

"No, Tom I don't need them," Scully protested. She wanted him out of her home, wanted to be alone to pull a blanket over her head and try to forget that she was alive.

"Yes you do," Tom insisted. He walked to the kitchen and poured a glass of water. "You've just had one hell of a day and tomorrow isn't looking any better."

Scully fell into a fit of distressed laughter. "See you later Allygator…" she laughed slumping onto her couch. Tom was a little afraid at this outburst. He wasn't quite sure what to do. "That's the last thing I said to her...See you later Allygator…the last thing I'll ever say to her."

"Take these," Tom repeated and handed her the painkillers. She still refused. "Dana this isn't going to change anything. It isn't going to make you forget. It will help you sleep. The next few days are going to be bad enough without exhaustion. And we both know without these you aren't going to sleep at all."

She gave in and took the two white pills. "Fox!" she gasped standing. "Tom, I told him to go home, that I would be there tonight."

"No." Tom sat her down on the couch again. "He doesn't need you right now. Let him sleep or pass out in an alcoholic stupor, just leave him alone for tonight."

"No," Scully demanded trying to stand.

"Don't Dana. There is nothing you can do that is going to make any difference. Your car's at the Fairfax county PD, besides you shouldn't be driving now anyway. Those percocet will start working in a few minutes," Tom told her.

"No, Tom he needs someone. He should be on suicide watch."

"He'll be fine. Trust me."

"Please," Scully stood and staggered to her desk. Whether it was exhaustion or the painkillers working in her sensitive system she could not tell but she felt disoriented. She looked through her desk drawer and found her personal phone book. She ripped out the page with the phone number of the Lonegunmen. "Get one of these guys. They are his best friends. One of them will stay with him."

"Okay I will, as soon as you are asleep," Tom placated her. Having done all she felt she could Scully went back to her bedroom and waited for the percocet to work.

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	18. Chapter 18

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Tina Mulder selected the floral spray—very small pink roses lying atop the small white coffin, and the small Episcopal Church—not far from where her son lived. She believed she had done him a great favor both in making the arrangements and in planning everything for his convenience. She would not however breach propriety by attending the ceremony, under the circumstances that would be inappropriate. So it was that Mulder sat unmoving and unattended in the front pew.

Scully walked into the sanctuary behind Maggie. She ached to go to him, to sit with him, to offer comfort to his pain, but her mother slipped into a seat halfway down the isle and gently pulled her daughter in beside her. The last few days had so overwhelmed her that Scully could not remember the last time she had thought for herself. She sat beside her mother.

Scully looked around at the surroundings, elegant, formal, the very opposite of the irreverent girl they were here to remember.

Tom sat on her right. "How are you?" he asked.

"Fine," she answered.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Tom replied. He was the first person to acknowledge that she was suffering as well, that she had loved the little girl now ceiled in the small, white coffin at the front of the church.

"Thank you, Tom." Scully's hand moved to take his. She maintained a neutral effigy through the service, refusing to think of Ally as they sang through banal hymn after banal hymn. Her mother would soon take her home and she could hide in a darkened bedroom. Finally the service ended and Scully looked around lost. Others in the congregation moved to the front of the sanctuary to offer condolences to Mulder.

Tom stepped into the isle and waited for Maggie and Dana. "I should tell you…confess…I didn't send anyone to check on him that night. He's tough. I knew he would pull through," he told Scully.

"It's okay," Scully said. "Skinner has been looking in on him." She could hear people saying, 'I'm sorry for your loss,' 'you have our deepest sympathy', 'truly heaven's gain'. Most of them had never even met his daughter. Most of them hardly knew him.

The cold pit in her stomach turned to ice as she neared Mulder. Maggie hugged him and whispered something inaudible, before moving away.

"Fox," Scully said in a small, distant voice. She reached out to touch his hand with the tips of her frozen fingers. The contact, though short, sent an electrical charge up her arm and she was gripped with a moment of absolute clarity—in the same room, standing inches apart she had never felt further from Mulder. They had never faced a tragedy of such magnitude together. One of them always had the emotional distance to offer solace and comfort. This time they were on opposite sides of an unbridgeable schism. Scully opened and closed her mouth in an attempt at speech, her soul screaming for him not to let this happen, to let her in, to need her.

Maggie pulled Dana away and wrapped an arm around her as they walked back up the isle. Tom joined them after a few paces and rested his hand at the base of Scully's back. The feeling of anyone touching her where Mulder had so often placed his hand, where their silent communication, their unique style of partnership had begun, caused something indelible in her to snap. She turned sharply.

"NO! Don't touch me! Don't you ever touch me!" She pushed him back. Everyone stared at her.

"Dana I…" Tom stammered and stepped away.

Mulder went to her side. He reached for her in an uncertain gesture but stopped. Maggie stepped between them and collected Dana into her arms with her free hand she prevented him from coming any closer.

"No," Maggie Scully's command stopped him mid step. "Not this time. I am sorry, Fox. What you have suffered is tragic but I can't care anymore…I believed you could be happy…believed that you could be a family. It isn't your fault, but you will never stop. Nothing will ever be enough for you…and you will never hurt my family again!" Maggie squared her shoulder as best she could under her daughter's weight and walked through the large wooden doors.

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EPILOGUE

Vanilla and lavender…distinct comforting…a warm, familiar pressure…the soft silky texture flowing through his fingers…Scully languid and curled up catlike across his chest.

She must have slipped into his bed late in the night, her strength sustaining a sort of spiritual limbo numbing him enough to sleep. He opened his eyes to see her half awake, looking at him.

"She has your eyes," Scully said sitting up over him. "I doubt you saw it, but she looked so much like you."

"She admired you, you know. She tried so hard to be like you," Mulder said his voice a low morning growl. Scully turned away. "When she was annoyed she gave me that look you have, where you look off to the side and tilt your head. I figured it was better than eye rolling." Mulder leaned forward, invading her space, and placing his arm on her waist, in case she had any idea of getting out of bed. "I'm glad you're here. I know what it must have cost you…your mother..."

"Don't Fox. She's hurting too. She understands. My father wasn't the easiest man to love and she chose him every time. What happens now?" she asked and was met with silence. "Colton wants me to transfer. I'm not sure I have much choice." Scully leaned back against him and he rested against the headboard. "I remember before, when everything was falling apart for us…your father's death, your mother's stroke, when I learned more about the abduction, my sister's murder. Through all of that, the X Files gave me a direction for my rage, something to put my back against. But I don't feel that way this time. We aren't on the X Files anymore and I don't believe there is anything left for me-or for us-at the FBI."

Mulder nodded his head. "I'd already decided. I was planning to resign," he said. Scully turned to look at him, astonished, the confession more unimaginable than any he had ever told her.

"Resign? Why?"

"I…Ally and I…wanted you to adopt her. We planned to ask you that night. Her birthday. The FBI would never allow us to continue as partners and co-parents."

"Oh," Scully said as the horrific cataclysm of events registered in her strained psyche.

_In another universe, she and Mulder were waking satiated and spent from a night given over to their passion more fully than they had ever allowed themselves before. Ally, endearing and obnoxious, was barging into their room. Mulder would make them coffee and hot chocolate. And they would laugh, content in the plans that stretched before them like a detailed map into happily ever after._

"What do we do new?" Scully asked resigning herself to the reality in which Ally had been ripped from them. She felt the hole in her spirit as she had felt physical wounds.

"I don't know."

"I know, I love you," Scully whispered against his neck, remembering how he had whispered those words to her in a moment of blind fear and cold exhaustion in the Arctic. Why were those words never be spoken between them in a moment of peaceful repose, while they ate a badly prepared home cooked meal and soft music played over candlelight?

Mulder pulled her tightly to him, his soul feeling like a barren tree jagged and sharp against a harsh winter skyline. He could feel the meristem layer at the core of his being growing hard and dark, but Scully was in his arms, her pure and constant spirit still locked with his. It happened in nature sometimes, two trees would grow together, twisting around each other, accommodating and strengthening the other amalgamating into one cohesive life force.

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AN: Meristem Layer—the tissue in plants where growth can take place


End file.
